Lockdown procedures: template and guidance
Your school leaders can use our template lockdown procedure to keep your school community safe in the event of a critical incident. The guidance and examples in this article will also help you adapt the template to meet your school's specific needs.
Contents
Template
Schools aren't legally required to have a lockdown procedure or policy.
If you're a maintained school, you should check whether your local authority sets its own requirements around this. If you're an academy, check your trust's requirements.
However, you should have a lockdown procedure if you feel that it would help you manage risks, or that you're at high risk of a scenario where a lockdown would be needed.
We have therefore created a template lockdown procedure, for your school leaders to adapt to meet your school's needs. There are prompts for adapting it in italics – as each school's site and context is different, you'll need to make sure it's completed based on what will work in your school.
Communicating your lockdown procedure
If your school