A leading secondary school principal says the lockdown of a handful of schools in Auckland yesterday shows the importance of schools having robust procedures in place for such situations.
Five North Shore schools were briefly locked down yesterday as police responded to reports of a person with a firearm in the area. Photo: RNZ / Finn Blackwell
Five schools went into an immediate lockdown while armed police swarmed an area in Belmont on the North Shore following reports of a man with a gun.
Auckland Secondary Schools Principals' Association president Greg Pierce told Morning Report the incident was a timely reminder to schools to keep on top of their security arrangements and to ensure all students knew to take lockdown drills seriously.
"I think for schools it's consistency and when we have these practice drills ... it's getting the students and the staff to treat them with the utmost seriousness."
He said Auckland was seeing an "increased prevalence of events during the day ... involving firearms and other", and it would be "very wise for schools to review their systems".
"When you're reviewing your drills, when you're preparing for this situation, you need to get everyone a 100 percent on board with the two or three core non-negotiables that have to occur in [a lockdown]," he said.
"We are dealing with students, in this case, from the ages of five to 18 and there are varying degrees of maturity."
Pierce said clear and timely communication to parents and the community were of particular importance when situations necessitating a lockdown occurred.
"Of course the natural reaction of parents are to want to go to the school, to ensure that their sons and daughters are safe, which is perfectly understandable but that doesn't help the situation," he said.
"The communication that goes out to parents are that there is a potential danger in the area, the police and the ministry have deemed it appropriate the schools go into lockdown."
Pierce said one of the main differences between primary and secondary schools going into lockdown was student access to personal communication devices.
"A lot of primary students don't have phones or devices at school, whereas secondary students do and it's natural even in this situation to get on and send the message home that you're ok, but the recommendations are that the phones are off and there's no noise or sound around - or movement."
He also cautioned concerned parents against putting too much stock into what they read on social media as lockdown incidents were unfolding.
"Normally in these situations there isn't a lot of hard evidence around.
"Social media, despite best intentions at times, not all the information that's circulated on social media is actually correct."
Staff keep students calm as lockdown unfolds
The principal of one of the schools that had to lockdown yesterday is advising parents to speak to their children about what happened.
Marianne Coldham of Bayswater School told Morning Report her school initiated its lockdown procedure after being advised by the Ministry of Education of a police incident in the area.
She said students and staff were required to "get down low, stay quiet and stay put" during the lockdown, which lasted around 30-40 minutes.
"Reports from the teachers in the classrooms tell me the kids took it in their stride, they quite enjoyed lying on the ground; I even had a parent yesterday whose one child told him it was fun."
Coldham said it was a long time for the school's youngest children to quietly stay put, but the teachers were experienced at talking to children of that age group to help reassure them.
"We do try and keep it relatively calm and them happy; keep anxiety low," she said.
"We talk about having to come inside, there might be a dog outside or there might be a swarm of bees - so we don't tell them exactly what's happened."
She said fire and earthquake drills had been commonplace in schools for years "and now we're used to lockdown drills as well".
Coldham said the school sent a letter to parents following yesterday's incident, asking them to talk to their own children as they saw fit about what had happened.
She said teachers at the school had decided to hold a "pyjama day" after the disruptive incident students experienced yesterday.
"Today we're going to have a light day, it's the last day of term and they've turned it into a pyjama day."
