How an academy trust is changing its approaches to school lockdowns

Express & Star

Matrix Academy Trust, which runs a number of schools in the Black Country, has changed its approach to school lockdowns working with West Midlands Police.

Transcript

00:00So I'm Joe Phillips and I'm the head teacher at Wensfield Academy.

00:04So we had an intruder arrive just outside our reception area

00:10and we had to put the school into a lockdown.

00:16The term that we were using at the time is in order to safeguard our pupils.

00:22It was something which we'd practised before

00:25where the pupils followed a procedure in order to keep themselves safe

00:31with the guidance of the staff.

00:34We were incredibly proud of our pupils and how they responded to it

00:38in order to keep themselves and others safe.

00:41And we were also very appreciative of the school community,

00:45both parents and further afield,

00:48in the support that they showed for the school

00:51and how they helped us afterwards.

00:54I think in the case of Wensfield, due to the seriousness of the incident,

01:00it meant that we had to go straight into what we termed then as lockdown.

01:05However, if we had an intruder that we weren't sure

01:10whether they were being threatening or similar sorts of behaviour,

01:15we could have maybe taken precautionary measures

01:18where we didn't have to put the whole school into a lockdown,

01:21which was the right thing to do for us,

01:23but it might have been overreaction

01:26should it not have been an intruder,

01:29but some misinterpreted information.

01:32So I think it's really, really important that there is a graduated response

01:36where teachers and staff can assess

01:40and then maybe take precautionary measures,

01:42whether that's just locking the outside of the building

01:45without having pupils to change what they're doing in the classroom

01:49while the situation is assessed.

01:51But as I said, what happened at Wensfield,

01:54we would have still taken the same action now,

01:56but I think it's really important to adapt the approach

01:59so it's not just a simple on-off.

02:02There needs to be a spectrum of the measures that you take.

02:07As a parent of two myself,

02:09I understand that if I was told that my child's school had gone into a lockdown,

02:14that would cause me understandable concern.

02:18And if it was a case that that wasn't needed

02:22or the situation was assessed

02:24and then it didn't have to go to that more extreme measure,

02:28then I think that that would help reassure parents.

02:32There's always going to be a time and a place

02:34to take the most serious of precautionary measures,

02:36but if that can be avoided,

02:38I think that is the right thing to do for the pupils and the parents safe.

02:42My name's Phil Dalby.

02:43I'm a Chief Superintendent in Westminster Police.

02:45I'm the Borough Commander for Policing in Walsall.

02:48One of the roles we have in policing is dealing with risk

02:51and dealing with uncertain incidents and emergencies and criticality.

02:56After a significant incident happened in one of the schools in the borough

02:59and I then worked with them afterwards

03:01about how I thought their response could be smarter

03:04and some of the things and the models and tools we have in policing

03:07and how that could be applied in school

03:09to help them make their decisions and keep people safe.

03:12The school really embraced that.

03:14That's kind of grown legs since then

03:16and now I think over 150 different members of staff

03:20from different schools across the borough have come in

03:22and heard one of the five sessions that we've done.

03:24So I do the inputs at the beginning about the things I'm recommending

03:28and then the school that's taken it on first

03:31delivers and shares all the things that they've done

03:34and then in a future session,

03:35once the schools have gone away and worked on it,

03:37they come back in and we just run through some scenarios gently together

03:40to see how's that model that you've developed for your school

03:43or a bunch of schools,

03:44working against what you've come up with

03:46if this happened and if that happened.

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