What Happens in a School Lockdown?

When hearing the term ‘Lockdown’, many people envisage a terror attack or other major incident and consider it highly unlikely to affect their school. However, lockdown procedures are not primarily aimed at protecting a school from unlikely terrorist activity.

There are many reasons why a school may need to keep their pupils, staff and visitors on the premises to keep them safe – ranging from a dangerous dog roaming loose to an incident or disturbance in the local community which poses a risk to the school. Environmental hazards such as a smoke plume or gas cloud may also be a risk for some geographical areas. Probably the most concerning of all is an intruder on-site who may wish to cause harm – in the past, this is more likely to be an abusive parent or disgruntled pupil than a complete stranger, although these events do happen.

The purpose of the lockdown is to prevent the threat outside the school from causing harm to pupils and staff inside the school. Just like a fire alarm, a lockdown is the school’s response to this threat. If the danger is inside the school, it evacuates. If the danger is outside the school, it goes into lockdown.

There is no generic way to write a lockdown procedure for your school. Local authorities may provide guidance, but each procedure will be different depending upon the size and layout of your premises, pupil ages, the likelihood of certain events occurring, whether you have a secure perimeter and the types of internal school communication systems you have.

However, some basic principles apply:

• Alert staff (and pupils) to the lockdown incident by a recognised signal, audible throughout the premises, inside and out.
• Bring pupils from outside school buildings inside as soon as possible.
• Lock all external doors and windows as necessary.
• Identify when pupils are not accounted for.

Most schools start by clarifying roles and responsibilities – who is going to take control in these events, and what other roles may be required. Staff may need extra training to carry out these roles. However, even if you have a lockdown team in place, remember that ANY member of staff may alert you to the emergency situation, so they all need to know and understand the school’s procedures.

A full lockdown indicates an immediate threat to the school. The aim of a lockdown is for the school to appear empty. Therefore windows should be closed and blinds should be drawn; lights, computers and smartboards should be turned off. Pupils should sit quietly out of sight, and where possible in a location away from harm – i.e. away from windows, perhaps under tables or behind internal walls. Mobile phones should be turned off, or at least silent so as not to give away their location.

But lockdown procedures are not simple – there are many things to consider.

Like any emergency procedure, a lockdown will be most effective if you practice it. Just like your fire evacuation procedures, once you have devised your lockdown procedure, it is important to first train both staff and pupils and then practice it. However, before carrying out a full practice lockdown, you should introduce the concept to pupils for discussion. Consider desk-based exercises, so they can fully understand what you are doing, and why, and how. Age-appropriate scenarios can be developed so that pupils do not become scared.

In addition, you may need to brief certain groups of people before you practice a lockdown at the school – practice scenarios may appear to be realistic, and in the fast world of social media, it may only take one rogue message saying “we’re hiding in the classroom from an armed intruder” for panic to spread outside the school! In some cases, you may also want to inform the emergency services, parents, governors and some parts of the local community.

There are numerous other areas to consider – including communication during the lockdown with parents and the media. A full debrief after the incident is recommended, to identify areas for improvement. It is unlikely your practices will ever fully resemble a real-life scenario, but planning ahead will help you to deal with these situations, which can be unpredictable and evolve quickly. The media is constantly telling us of terrible events both at home and away – and having a procedure to follow can make pupils and staff feel safer because they know what to do in case of an incident.

A lockdown is a procedure that every good school needs, every member of staff needs to understand, and no-one ever wants to use.

If would like any information or guidance on any of the points covered in this article or want to learn more about the SafetyMARK Award Scheme