What is the difference between Lockdown and Invacuation?

It’s 3pm, your staff are all wrapping up the last lesson of the day and an incident has happened outside the school. Whether that's a nearby chemical fire or reports of violence in the area with a police response, you can’t exactly let any pupils out until the problem is dealt with but also don’t want to cause a big panic. It’s best to do this in an organised and safe way which is where invacuation and lockdown procedures come into the picture.

It’s a good idea that your response to a danger is measured so that panic isn't caused where it's not needed. There’s no need to completely lockdown a school when the day can continue as normal inside the building. But equally, it’s good to make everyone aware in the event of an attacker on the school grounds so they can act. Whatever that previously decided action is, the staff and pupils can know how to avoid any danger.

This specific scenario would be a Level 1 situation. Making sure everyone is indoors and that the external threat isn't able to enter the schools perimeter would be the top priority. You wouldn't need to lock internal doors or cause any major disruptions to the running of the school day.

Interested in what level 1 means? This insight goes more into what the different levels of Lockdown are.

What is a Lockdown?

In contrast to an invacuation providing safety with little disruption to the day, Lockdowns are the next level up. The threat is within the school and your focus should be completely on how to move staff, students and visitors to a safe space as far away from the threat as possible. Sheltering until the threat has been dealt with.

All levels of lockdown are geared towards maximising the safety of the people within the school and so robust alerting measures should be taken to ensure that safety. Tense situations can often result in confusion as to what should be done and so clarity is vital. Fire alarms are a no go as it can send the wrong message that people should evacuate and leave the building but anything slower than a fire alarm is precious time lost in securing the school.

What can be done?

This is where systems like LOCAS come in. An alarm system designed with these exact situations in mind. Wirelessly connecting over a kilometre away to talk with dozens of other alarms, it guarantees awareness across the school of what level of response should be used going ahead without giving away where anybody is. All at a moments notice.

Pairing this with systems like InVentry, which also integrates with Paxton, it’ll be easier to track if students or staff have left buildings recently or if there are any absences that would have previously been uncertain.

Year on year, there are more cases of violence in schools and an unfortunate rise in weapon (particularly knife) attacks within the UK. OFSTED reported a 68.4% increase from 2018-2019 in knife crime within schools specifically across England and Wales (excluding the Greater Manchester Police area).

Meaning that school security measures can’t stagnate and need to develop in line with or faster than the dangers they can possibly face. If you’d like to learn more about the technology used to negate this then fill in our contact form and we'll get back to you with answers to all of your questions.