Increasingly schools have been following government guidance and practising lockdown drills which can be used as part of preparing their response to emergency situations.
As actual incidents have shown threats to the school can be internal. For example, the teachers’ union, the NASUWT, has reported an increase in poor behaviour by pupils, which includes physical abuse of staff. Additionally, there have been cases of students attacking their peers which have included cases of knife crime, such as the murder of a pupil in Sheffield last year.
External threats include intruders that might be intent on criminal damage or on attacking pupils or staff. Schools are also now expected to be prepared for terrorism and other major incidents.
Security guidance developed
The Department of Education’s school and college security guidance for England was published in 2019 and last updated in July 2024. This guidance states that a school’s security policy should complement their safeguarding policy. There are templates and checklists for how schools could deal with incidents including a bomb threat and different ways you could respond.
In April 2024 more specific guidance for dealing with terrorist or similar emergency incidents was developed by the DofE, with an update published in April last year. This followed the publication of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy in 2023.
The guidance adapted principles from the National Counter-Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) into more sector-specific advice and provided interactive resources to help education settings embed these principles.
The government has also developed a bespoke e-learning training package, Actions Counters Terrorism (ACT) for Education, which is designed for all staff working in education settings, so they are more prepared for lockdown drills.
How schools should respond to major incidents
The 2025 guidance recommends that schools and colleges appoint a ‘security’ lead to develop and maintain policies and plans which promote a good security culture. The advice is that all staff should familiarise themselves with protocols such as See, Check and Notify (Scan) for identifying suspicious activity, the HOT protocol for dealing with suspicious items and Run, Hide Tell to ensure that they can respond to a live incident.
The guidance suggests that schools should consider three response options to a live incident: Lockdown, Invacuation and Evacuation. Overall, the advice is always to run and escape from a threat if you can, hide if you cannot and tell by calling the police if it is safe to do so.
A lockdown is defined as “locking or barricading a room’s doors and windows to delay or deter someone intending to cause harm from getting into an area”. The guidance states: “You should consider in advance to what extent you might be able to lock or barricade classrooms and other spaces in your setting during an incident, and whether additional door jamming, or lockdown devices are needed.”
Part of the challenge for dealing with an incident, exposed during lockdown drills, is how to achieve effective communications. The guidance states that communications should ideally be quick to activate; reach all those that needed to know; be something that any member of staff could activate from various locations and not increase the risk of harm to the person who activates the alert.
Lockdown drills help schools prepare for acts of terrorism
Being prepared for terrorist incidents within schools will become a legal requirement when the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, known as Martyn’s Law, takes effect in April 2027.
Schools of all sizes will be regulated by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), as standard premises under the law. This means that schools will be required to notify the SIA of their premises and have procedures and plans to deal with the communication, evacuation, invacuation and lockdown.
As schools start to follow last year’s guidance, they are increasingly carrying out lockdown drills, and more cases of actual lockdowns are being reported. However, carrying these out, and knowing when to do this, can be challenging, but the sector is working together to provide support: such as advice from the teachers’ union, the NASUWT, and a SMART Response framework produced by the West-Midlands based Matrix Academy Trust which it is now sharing with all schools. This was developed after a school within its Trust had a lockdown, that resulted in unforeseen consequences.
How we can help
Ecl-ips is a long-established supplier of security systems to state and independent schools of all sizes. We originally developed a lockdown system in 2019 for Holy Trinity Catholic School in Birmingham, which is now part of the St. Teresa of Calcutta Multi Academy Company. This combined microphone and speakers with an Avigilon video management system linked to their CCTV cameras, providing a clear communication method and the ability to view the site.
Since then, technology has improved in respect of the capabilities embedded within security cameras; real-time monitoring and access control. Use of the cloud and advanced AI analytics mean access control and video management systems can be unified; occupation counting and evacuation records can be managed centrally, and via mobile devices if required.
For schools that have developed clear security policies and trained staff, but are looking to support for them further, and to improve their responses to internal and external threats, we would be delighted to help so please get in touch.