Have you got weapons in your classroom in case of an assailant?

[noblegiraffe]

I just read this thread on twitter asking if teachers have considered what to use as a weapon in their classroom in case of an attack. Teacher after teacher saying they have baseball bats, heavy objects, things to break windows with, throw at a shooter. Teachers planning which cupboards to hide children in, trained to create barricades.

twitter.com/pernilleripp/status/963947498036449280

It’s just heartbreaking. I suppose I’ve idly thought ‘I’d lock the door and get the kids to hide in the far corner’ but this is something that those teachers have to seriously be prepared for. There have been 8 school shootings so far in the US in 2018 and we’re only halfway through February.

Reading that thread and feeling the fear I can see this heading towards the call for teachers to be armed and some teachers wanting that.

Those poor children. Their poor teachers. And how these events affect all teachers and children over there.

Do schools in the U.K. need to practice lockdown procedures??

Noble - I said upthread we had an ex student plot to carry out a terror attack on our college (aware not a school but not a million miles away) and we're in the UK.

I’m not suggesting that schools shouldn’t have a lockdown procedure, it’s whether it needs to be practised with students.

I think it’s sensible that schools think how to get a message to all teachers in the event of an incident, and what the procedure is (lock doors, possibly move students away from the door), but apart from that, what exactly is being prepared for that teachers couldn’t communicate when necessary?

A bomb threat is likely to need evacuation not lockdown. We’re not likely to have ex-students with semi-automatic rifles on an indiscriminate killing spree, which is what schools in the US need to be prepared for.

What form does this direct threat take?

Our primary has a lock down procedure which we have practised without children. We are planning a practice with children to evaluate the procedures. We will tell the children it is in case a dog gets in. The reason for practising is to try to identify the risks/flaws. As well as fire drills we also have evacuation procedures for gas leaks and bombs which will be practised with the older children.

It is unlikely that in the U.K we face the same level of risk as the US. But terrorism remains a viable threat and whilst I would hope we never have to lockdown for a gun we have had to lock down for an alcoholic man who got into the grounds until police confirmed he was unarmed and arrested him.

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/newcastle-college-bomb-plotter-liam-10131847 killing spree planned. UK.

But terrorism remains a viable threat

Does it? What form of terrorism? I think it would be silly to think that schools can prepare against a vague notion of terrorism when it can take so many forms. Suicide vest? Bomb? Someone running at people with a knife? Lorry being driven into pedestrians?

What is the difference between the evacuation procedure for a fire and a bomb?

I was really depressed reading Palavra's post upthread about how secure the Jewish primary school in London needs to be. I accept that some schools need to be more safety-conscious than others because of their location and associated crime-rate, and potentially their intake.

We don’t have a lockdown procedure, large town primary.

A school where a friends children attends had to evacuate due to a bomb threat a few years ago. They took all the children to the next school which was about 1/4 mile along the same road.

The problem with this was that although the children were safe, and assembled in the hall, the parents who lived on the road and had seen the entire school trooping by started spreading all kinds of rumours via Facebook resulting in parents turning up and demanding their children back.

What is the difference between the evacuation procedure for a fire and a bomb?

Having been in the receiving end of an IRA bomb I can tell you that with a bomb you need to be a long way from the building.
Standing on the playground would still be dangerous.

Terrifying, PlaymobilI and thank goodness that he didn't pull it off.

If a bomb evacuation requires students to be a long way from the school then that isn't something that can be practised.

Our evacuation procedure is evacuating to another school. It is about a 10 minute walk. The idea of practising with a class of older children is to assess any hazards when walking with a group of children. It is likely to be a one off practise.

The terrorism threat is not something I have assumed. The government has said that schools are a vulnerable target for terrorism. I would like to think it isn't a high risk but without having access to classified security history and intelligence I will have to take their word for it.

I agree that the most important thing for every school is to have procedures in place for communicating different types of emergency and making sure all adults are confident in how to respond. I would never want to carry a weapon and I would always prefer to move the children in my care away from danger. Would I act as a shield, use physical violence or grab a fire extinguisher to protect an endangered child? I would like to think so.

My school (UK) has emergency lockdown and shelter procedures (lockdown for internal threat, shelter for external). I find the drills quite upsetting in terms of imagining how I would protect my pupils (nursery age so very dependent).

Bomb drills when I was a forces child meant gathering away from the buildings and sitting down. It’s not about running around like demented chickens, it’s about thinking of a potential danger and what steps you could reasonably take to neutralise it effectively. No, we probably will never need half or any of the precautions to be put in place. Probably.

Piglet saying that schools would be a soft target for terrorism isn't the same thing as saying that schools are a target for terrorists. They're a soft target because they're a large gathering of people with relatively easy access - like a church service, pop concert or Christmas market. Any threat to schools is, like in the US, more likely to be local.

I feel pretty safe in my classroom. Would I feel any safer if I had to routinely practise herding my students into the corner and barricading the doors? No, I'd feel less safe, because it would suggest that the threat is real. Would I be any more safe from doing it? Probably not, balanced against having to do the same action without practice.

The school in Florida would have had lockdown procedures - the shooter set off the fire alarm and escaped by pretending to be a student.

Bomb drills when I was a forces child

But this was entirely sensible. The forces were a specific target for the IRA.

I Know DS’s nursery have a lock down plan and evacuation arranged in case of incidents. I was both terrorfied and thankful they had even thought of it

No one is arguing with you, noblegiraffe. We are just telling you what schools have put in place and what we are complying with. No, I didn’t arbitrarily decide, as an individual, to practise lockdown procedures with a class. Any more than the other thousands of activities that I have done over the years as told to by the SLT.

re. Arming teachers.

I found it very interesting to read the accounts of the LV shooting. It was a country music show, and many of the staff/roadies/ public carried or had weapons nearby.

Every account I have read they have done a 180 from being pro gun, to wanting strict gun control. They said beforehand, it would have been "well I would grab my gun and shoot him". After actually being caught up in an event they realised how useless guns would be- they didn't know where he was, the panic, so many people running. they couldn't even get to their guns in a nearby trailer, but even if they had what would the shoot at- the chance of hitting a bystander in the melee was huge, and also the probability of being shot by the police when they saw a man with a gun. They simply don't have time to stop and ask whether you're the goodie or the baddie, in the middle of a mass shooting they will shoot anyone with a gun.

There were lots of people with guns in the LV shooting. And they couldn't stop one man with a gun. I very much doubt teachers would be able to either.

In the 80s, I used to work on the top floor of a 4 storey Edwardian building, waaaay up high in the sky. If the kitchens caught fire at the bottom of my stairs, the fire escape route took us out if a small window and onto a flat roof with no boundary walls in an area that regularly had high winds. I was told to test the route once a year, I did it without children and it scared the fuck out of me. The one time the kitchen did catch fire, we were doing pe for which I was very grateful.
But as teachers, we do what we are told.

November I'm more thinking out loud and it seems that there are schools in the UK who are practising this stuff.

really One of the students in the school in Florida interviewed his fellow students about gun control while they were locked down. The second student in the video said that she was pro-NRA, pro the right to own a gun and was intending to learn to shoot and that she had now totally changed her opinion, having been on the other end of a gun. www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article200242224.html

I won't lie, it is something which is worrying me. In truth, I think an actual event would react in an instinctive response. I don't think you could plan for it.

We practiced a lockdown procedure quite recently - the same lock doors/ close blinds /under tables as others have mentioned. I think practising it maybe once a year with students is quite good as if only the staff knew it would be difficult to communicate it at the time - "oh I just heard 5 bells now could everyone please get under the tables while I lock the door and close the blinds" would cause confusion. As I understand it, staying quiet is important so having to deliver those instructions quickly to an incredulous class would be difficult.
Tbh I have my questions over whether staff would actually adhere to the procedure if it came out of the blue and how effective it would be - I trust there is some evidence somewhere that went into the policy, possibly naïvely.

I think hiding in a cupboard would be a very bad idea in the instance of an armed intruder though? I was at school in Scotland when the Dunblane massacre happened and it has always stayed with me that the children were killed huddled together behind their teacher- we had to have an assembly where we were told to disperse where possible. Think that's why you get under a table - you can get out from under it if needs be. It's a horrendous thing to have to consider.

Of course, Andy Murray was hiding under a table (under the head's desk, as it goes) as the Dunblane shootings took place. I wonder how he, and other people who lost people, or survived Dunblane, feel every time this happens in the USA and they do nothing. Except talk about praying.

And after Dunblane the gun controls became much stricter and this was when schools started to lock gates etc.

TES reports that there are the expected calls on Twitter for teachers to be armed following this shooting, including from a politician.

More interestingly, there are calls for teachers to stage a national walkout until something is done about gun control. Given that a teacher and a sports coach died protecting their students, I think that would be a fair request.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/us-school-shooting-debate-over-whether-teachers-should-be-armed-or