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Lock Down policy


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Last week at our staff training day, the issue of having a lock down policy was raised. Our local primary school has one and one of my staff runs Beavers and she has had to do one recently. We went round and round in circles discussing what we would do in the event of a major incident but didn't come up with a final solution (at school they have a special bell that rings and the children are told to up turn all the tables, close the blinds, cover the windows in the doors and hide anywhere they can). In our setting it is very open plan, only a few tables and a cupboard big enough for about 3 people!

 

I was just wondering if anyone had a lock down policy? I have contacted the local police to ask for advice but thought I would see if any of you helpful people can help too.

 

Thanks in advance.

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An intruder in the setting. My own children have a practice Lock Down every term at school, just like a fire drill and the older ones are told that there is someone in the building who shouldn't be there. I suppose our circumstances are slightly different in that we our situated on a military housing patch which is open to the general public (ie. it's not behind a wire).

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We have it as part of our emergency policy, which also includes bomb threats. We have identified an area of the building that is safest. We get every one inside. All doors and internal doors are locked. Mobile phone carried with us and emergency medication for all children (we have a grab bag for outings/emergencies which should include money ! and black bags to be used like foil blankets.

We also have a flood policy!....to be fair we are very near windsor castle so high risk area...we have had a bomb threat before!! Covers you for strangers/ terrorist attack/ major incident and we also include an evacuation plan if we need to get everyone of the grounds!

....feel a bit silly now but it is recommended for our area!

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I dont know how i feel about all this for our group it would seem over the top, we do have a place of safety as Thumper does we have a grab bag - but nowhere the stuff that Finleysmaid has in it. I can't imagine getting the children to do a lock down though.

Our local alarms went off last term so had an unexpected practice!!! My daughters school was near a prison...they also had a lock down system!

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We have it as part of our emergency policy, which also includes bomb threats. We have identified an area of the building that is safest. We get every one inside. All doors and internal doors are locked. Mobile phone carried with us and emergency medication for all children (we have a grab bag for outings/emergencies which should include money ! and black bags to be used like foil blankets.

We also have a flood policy!....to be fair we are very near windsor castle so high risk area...we have had a bomb threat before!! Covers you for strangers/ terrorist attack/ major incident and we also include an evacuation plan if we need to get everyone of the grounds!

....feel a bit silly now but it is recommended for our area!

Would it be possible to have a copy of your emergency policy Finleysmaid please? Whilst I agree it does seem over the top we are in an area which is probably considered more vulnerable than others. It was actually quite interesting having all the staff talk about this as everyone had very different ideas about they would do if someone did manage to gain access to the building (and if we are being perfectly honest, it doesn't matter what safety measures you have in place, if someone wants to get in, they will). It did make me realise that without having a known procedure all the staff would be doing totally different things, potentially putting others at risk.

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our policy requires us to get everyone indoors, stay in classrooms, close windows, pull down blinds and lock external doors. No-one may leave the room until told it is safe to do so, so bucket at the ready in the corner! No-one may use mobile phones.

We have a claxon to differentiate from fire warning.

Having said that, haven't had a practise ever.

We were required to have such a procedure in place by the LA.

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An intruder in the setting. My own children have a practice Lock Down every term at school, just like a fire drill and the older ones are told that there is someone in the building who shouldn't be there. I suppose our circumstances are slightly different in that we our situated on a military housing patch which is open to the general public (ie. it's not behind a wire).

Apologies Bluebell76 - didn't even stop to welcome you to the forum - my mind was boggled by the 'upturned' table scenario!

 

So hi and welcome!

 

I can see that you are in a somewhat special situation......

 

We do have an 'emergency' folder thingy - Kent issued years ago - now feeling terrible because I looked through it at the time and then added it to the shelf of a zillion other folders and it has been there gathering dust ever since - if I find time i will blow off the aforementioned dust tomorrow and see if there is anything in there that might help you :1b

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Finleysmaid ...I want to know what you're gonna spend the money on when your all locked in your cupboard.....do you think the ice cream van might come round :P

Haha yes i realised that didn't quite make sense!!! the money is for if we have to evacuate in case we need to organise food/drink or buy emergency supplies !

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Sooooooo

 

I blew the dust off our Emergency type folder and discovered.........nothing of much use to you except possibly try

 

www.teachernet.gov.uk/emergencies/planning/index.html

 

But bear in mind that folder was published in 2008.......

Edited by sunnyday
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Do I sense a touch of summer term madness going on in some of these posts people - upturned tables and icecreams! Goodness me it sounds as though you may be having fun??

Seriously though - we have a procedure that is meant to come into practice if we have uninvited person or aggressive parent / carer on the premises. Used it once when a parent did not appreciate my phone call to Children's Services or the reasons why I made the phone call. Scary :( We lock inner door and shut blinds / curtains and leave the manager to it (thats me then)!

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Well ...... The main door is not locked. The staff and children are locked inside the playroom, although they can escape through a fire door if necessary, and I am in the cloakroom with the afore mentioned 'threat'. I will of course have risk asessed the danger to myself, written it out in duplicate and stored it in a file somewhere. The blinds etc are drawn so that the children do not witness anything inappropriate or traumatic.

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I'm sitting here with my mind boggling- sorry I dont mean to be rude and I realise that for some of you this maybe a necessary evil however I cannot think of anything more scary for a three year old than seeing us all run around practising a 'lock down'

Any intruder or whatever would be locked in with us as we have no interior locks, the safest thing for us to do if someone was in would be to get out- we have plenty of fire exits- so there is our emergency evacuation then.

 

I suppose if the threat was outside then that would be different- we never know what is going on outside anyway as we have only one door that lead to 'proper' outside and we aren't in that room, all our windows are about 20 feet up and we can only see sky !!

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Ok, I have to admit to having an evacuation policy, with a designated safe place if we can't return clause, and have experienced "lock down" on the request of the Local Authority during the London bombings, but honestly, common sense needs to prevail. We are adults, we understand that the saftey of children is paramont, and I don't need a policy to cover every unlikely scenario in life...i can apply common sense in an unforseen disaster. I still have all my emergency call trees and disaster plan for swine flu, and will never ever waste that much time again planning for what probably will not happen, just to tick a box!!

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Ok, I have to admit to having an evacuation policy, with a designated safe place if we can't return clause, and have experienced "lock down" on the request of the Local Authority during the London bombings, but honestly, common sense needs to prevail. We are adults, we understand that the saftey of children is paramont, and I don't need a policy to cover every unlikely scenario in life...i can apply common sense in an unforseen disaster. I still have all my emergency call trees and disaster plan for swine flu, and will never ever waste that much time again planning for what probably will not happen, just to tick a box!!

Hear Hear!!

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