11th November 2022
Dear Parent/Carer
Re: Emergency

As you may be aware, all schools must have a lockdown procedure in place in case of emergency. We have reviewed our procedures and a copy is now on our school website. We will practice the procedure at least once a year with children so that they would know what to do should we ever need to use lockdown. This is done sensitively with children so as not to cause any distress, in the same way that school would practice the Fire Evacuation Procedure.

Lockdown procedures are important and would be used in response to an internal or external incident which could be a threat to the safety of staff and children in the school. Lockdown procedures may be activated in response to any number of situations, these may be:

  • A reported incident, disturbance in the local community
  • An intruder on the site
  • A warning being received regarding a local risk of air pollution (smoke plume, gas cloud etc.)
  • A major fire in the vicinity of the school
  • The close proximity of a dangerous dog

Our procedure aims to minimise disruption to the learning environment whilst ensuring the safety of all pupils and staff. You may wish to read the full policy, however, this section gives the guidance for parents. If necessary, parents/carers should be notified as soon as practicable to do so via the school messaging service that there is a lockdown situation, they should be given enough information about what will happen so that they are reassured that everything possible is being done to ensure their child’s safety:

  • they should not contact the school as this will tie up the phone lines.
  • they should not attend school as this could interfere with the emergency services access to schooland they may put themselves in danger.
  • they should wait for the school to contact them about when it is safe to collect their children.

Pupils will not be released to parents during a lockdown.

Hopefully, we will never have a situation where we would need to use lockdown, but we all feel safer knowing that we have procedures in place for any eventuality that would keep our children safe.

Kind regards

Mr Silverwood

Head Teacher

Lockdown Procedure 2022