Devon and Cornwall Police: advice and guidance to education settings (including childcare) in relation to emergencies
Purpose: Enhanced information due to continuing enquiries regarding school (and other educational settings) lockdowns and firearms incidents
Date: 21st December 2023
Devon & Cornwall Police last distributed guidance to schools and education settings, via Local Authorities, in February 2016. That was during a period when schools were receiving hoax bomb threats and we have reviewed that guidance due to further enquiries post regional incidents. Further National guidance, in response to national incidents, may follow. Some LA areas have had a MOU and this document replaces both that MOU and the previous guidance.
This is an opportunity for education settings to review security and / or emergency plans to confirm that the arrangements in place are still current and have been tested to ensure staff and students are prepared and confident.
The guidance includes links to open-source guidance, but this is not exhaustive list.
We are not able to assist individual schools other than providing them with this guidance and schools should be prompted to liaise with their Local Authority. If they cannot provide the service, then they may have to consider buying in to a service around their specific needs. Should there be specific threats to individual schools or other educational settings, they can be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Top Tier Local Authorities may also be able to provide templates, for example, DCC have templates available on OSHENS.
The above provides guidance on how educational and childcare settings should plan for and deal with emergencies. All education settings should have emergency plans in place. You can download an example of a school’s emergency plan template from Nottinghamshire County Council. It also has guidance to help you develop appropriate arrangements for your education settings.
School and college security – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
It is important for schools and colleges to have a policy and plan in place to manage and respond to security related incidents. Your security policy should complement your safeguarding policy, particularly where it puts in place measures to protect students and address the threat of serious violence. It should form part of your suite of policies to ensure the health, safety and well-being of students and staff. Contained within the above pages, are several templates including bomb alert and threats, shelter (in-evacuation), lockdown, and site security guidance.
It is vital that you can move your staff and students away from danger in a controlled way. Ensure you have several options available, well sign posted and notified to people on your site. Sometimes it may be safer to remain inside a building; identify the most suitable internal spaces that staff and students can move to.
When to call the police:
when-to-call-the-police–guidance-for-schools-and-colleges.pdf (npcc.police.uk)
The above advice is for school and college staff with responsibility for behaviour management, including designated safeguarding leads (DSLs), their deputies, head teachers and senior leadership teams in schools and colleges in England. This advice covers incidents on school and college premises where students have potentially committed a crime. It provides guidance
on what schools and colleges should bear in mind when considering contacting the police.
This advice covers the following situations:
- Assault
- Criminal damage
- Cyber crime
- Drugs
- Harassment
- Sexual offences
- Theft
- Weapons
The advice aims to support schools and other educational settings, to make defensible decisions when considering whether to involve the police.
Do staff and, where appropriate, students understand the ‘Stay Safe’ principles of RUN, HIDE, TELL: Stay Safe: Firearms & Weapons Attack #ActionCountersTerrorism (youtube.com)
Staff Awareness and Security Culture: Have you briefed your staff on how they can recognise suspicious activity? Good estate management and controlling access to school premises can prevent incidents from occurring.
Preparedness: Are your first aid kits and emergency grab bags checked regularly, complete, and accessible?
Physical Security: Have you checked your CCTV systems? Are they all working correctly? Are the date/time stamps accurate?
Safeguarding leads within education settings should make themselves aware of the advice and guidance here: ProtectUK | Home which may create further conversations in management teams and governing bodies.
What does a Police Firearms response look like:
It is recognised that each school’s premises are unique in terms of size, daily routine, and local environment. There may be many staff, pupils, and visitors on school premises.
Police Authorised Firearms Officers (AFOs) may be deployed to schools in response to a spontaneous incident which occurs at a school or nearby. Such policing operations will be conducted with due regard to the National Police Chief’s Council Manual of Guidance on the Police Use of Firearms and linked Codes of Practice and Authorised Professional Practice.
AFOs will only be deployed because of a review of the available information, leading to a threat assessment, which indicates that the deployment of armed officers is necessary as a tactical option.
The primary purpose of such a deployment is to save life or to protect those on the school premises from a serious risk of attack from a person who is in possession of a firearm, who has immediate access to a weapon or is otherwise so dangerous that a police officer’s use of a firearm may be necessary. The police incident commander will regularly review this threat assessment and will withdraw armed officers as soon as the commander believes that their presence is no longer required.
A priority action for the person becoming aware of a firearms incident within a school, its grounds or vicinity must be to call the police for assistance via the 999 system and this caller should clearly identify themselves, the name of the school, its location, and
a contact telephone number.
The police call handler will also request other information, including the following:
Priority information:
• Are the offenders with the firearms still at the scene?
• How many offenders are there?
• How many firearms are there?
• What exactly has happened?
Other information:
• Are you/others in the school in a safe place?
• Does anybody have any injuries – is an ambulance required?
• How do you know it’s a firearm?
• Can you describe the weapon you have seen or heard?
• Can you describe the person(s) carrying the weapons?
• Can you give a brief description of the other offenders?
The caller should NOT put himself or herself at risk to obtain this information.
The safety of staff, pupils and other members of the public remains the priority for the police operation.
Details of the incident will be immediately relayed to the Police Control Room Inspector, who is a trained firearms commander. The Inspector will assess the information available and will authorise armed officers and other resources to be deployed if necessary.
These officers may be deployed immediately to the scene, or alternatively, to a nearby location to gather sufficient numbers of officers to deal with the incident. The Control Room Inspector’s decision will be reviewed by a senior firearms commander.
A Tactical Plan for dealing with the incident will be identified. The Police Control Room will liaise with the Fire and Rescue/Ambulance Control Rooms as necessary. The plan will cover how/if contact will be made with the headteacher or other senior staff in the school, according to the circumstances of the incident.
Where necessary, the Police may contact the Local Authority to activate further response plans or to support the police operation.