Thinking through the best courses of action to take if there were a threat to the children at your setting is an uncomfortable but very important exercise. Although the chances of an armed intruder arriving on your premises are thankfully very very slight, there are a number of other situations in which you might also need to get all of the children safely inside fast.
Possible situations in which you might apply a lockdown or critical incident procedure include:
- Hostile intruder
- Civil unrest (eg rioting, hostile demonstration)
- Chemical leak
- Radiation risk
- Attempted abduction (whether by an estranged parent or stranger)
- Major incident in immediate vicinity (eg car / plane crash etc)
- Out of control animals (eg dogs, bees, etc)
Basic steps of any lockdown procedure
Whatever the nature of the threat, the principle is the same:
Your basic steps will therefore always be:
- Raise the alarm
- Get the children to a place of safety
- Alert the emergency services
Developing a lockdown procedure for your setting
To develop a lockdown procedure for your setting you need to sit down with your staff and work through a number of possible scenarios to identify the best ways to deal with each one. It is impossible to plan for every eventuality and in a real emergency events will happen very quickly, but if you have agreed the basic procedure with your staff in advance you will all be better prepared and less likely to panic.
You may want to think about the following scenarios when creating your policy:
If the intruder (or other threat) is outside:
- Sound the alarm: Agree on what the alarm signal should be, eg whistle, air-horn, rape alarm, walkie-talkie, code word. It is essential that the lockdown alarm is instantly recognisable so that everyone knows to act immediately.
- Get all children and staff indoors without delay. If you have more than one entrance, decide on which is the best one to use.
- Secure all external doors and windows. Whose task is it to check that all of these are secure?
- Alert the emergency services.
- Keep the children away from windows and doors and out of line of sight from outside, for example on the floor or under tables (depending on the nature of the threat). Close blinds and curtains if possible.
If the intruder is inside or likely to break in:
- Raise the lockdown alarm as outlined above.
- Get the children to a place of safety: this would ideally be an internal room with a lockable door. Think about which room would be best. If there is no lockable internal door, consider what you could use to barricade the door (eg tables or other furniture).
- Alert the emergency services.
- Keep the children quiet and out of line of sight as outlined above.
- Consider whether it would be appropriate to evacuate the children (eg via a fire door or a window) if there is another safe refuge nearby. This would depend on the nature and location of the threat and the layout of your premises.
- Identify possible hiding places. Would it be possible to hide the children until the threat was over?
- Stay in contact with the emergency services throughout the incident. Neither assume nor check that the coast is clear; wait to be informed by emergency services.
When you have created your lockdown policy/procedure using our template, discussed these scenarios with your staff, you then need to share at least some of it with the children so that you can practise a 'lockdown drill' occasionally, just as you would a fire drill. In order not to alarm the children you might want to just practise the 'getting everyone inside quickly' part and couch it in terms of something not too scary, such as "What we would do if there was a swarm of bees outside. We do not want to cause any anxiety or stress for children, but they do need to know what to do, so you will know your children the best
General tips
Remind your staff to be vigilant at all times and to challenge unfamiliar visitors. Keep doors and windows and other access points locked when not in use.
FREE downloads:
Emergency Evacuation Procedure
Supporting Children - Tragic Event