All schools are advised to put in place emergency arrangements in the unlikely event of an incident requiring a school to use a lockdown procedure to ensure the safety of the pupils and staff. We have done many things to reduce risk to our pupils in school including putting up additional fencing, a new back gate and changing our procedures. We update our Emergency Plan each year and in support of this, we have put in place lockdown procedures. The lockdown procedure is a response to any incident that has the potential to pose a threat to the safety of pupils, staff and visitors in the school. The procedure may be used in situations such as an incident or civil disturbance in the local community, terrorist action or threat of terrorist action or an intruder on the school site.
When the school is in lockdown, all those on site will be required to follow the procedures. Staff and pupils will be required to go to or stay in the nearest classroom where the door will be locked or blocked to prevent access. Windows will be closed and phones need to be placed on silent. Senior members of staff in school will coordinate the lockdown procedures to ensure the safety of all areas of the school. We will establish contact with emergency services and the local authority until such time as it is appropriate to end the lockdown procedures.
The school will communicate to parents that lockdown procedures are in place via the school website and other social media platforms. We would request that in such circumstances, parents do not use the phones to contact the school as we would need to keep phone lines clear for communication with emergency services. There will be no access to the school other than to emergency services. During a lockdown, the school retains loco parentis and pupils will not be released to parents until the lockdown has ceased.
These procedures are a precaution and are nothing to be alarmed about. In order to support this process, we are going to undertake a lockdown rehearsal with all pupils, staff and visitors in school. This rehearsal will allow pupils to become familiar with the procedures as they are different to our fire evacuation procedures. We will discuss this with pupils to prepare them for this rehearsal but we would be grateful if you could reinforce the message that this is nothing to be concerned about but allows additional safety arrangements to be made in school should we need to use the lockdown procedures. The rehearsal will take place on Monday 18th November. Should you have any questions in relation to this, please direct them via your child’s Head of Year