With the changing times human beings are not only prone to natural disasters but also manmade disasters. One of them being terrorist attacks at schools. After the terrorist attack in Army Public School at Peshawar, Pakistan in 2014 the Ministry of Human Resource Development issued a SOP on 19 th December, 2014 for dealing with any such terrorist attack on schools.
Keeping in mind the safety of the students and to train them the Lock Down drill was conducted by St. Columba's school on 16th October’19 .This was the first time that this kind of drill was organized in our school It was conducted simultaneously by all the three wings of the school i.e. the Senior wing, the Middle and the Junior wing. The siren was sounded for 30 seconds at 8:50 am sharp. It was a different sound from the ones used for Earthquake and Fire drill.
There after the teachers in the classes followed the other steps of the drill like switching off the light ,securing the windows ,shutting down the smart board etc. The teachers in the respective classes also latched the doors from inside. No student was found moving in the corridor except for one student who had gone to the washroom he was quickly moved to the class closest to him.
All the doors were shut including the doors in the Foyer. There was no one on the field. The boys on the field had moved to the ERH .The helpers and the PTI s who were marking the ground also moved inside the Sports room. The stationary person had also shut down the kiosk.
The parents /visitors had moved to the parent’s parlor and had latched themselves from inside. There were teachers appointed on each floor to observe the drill. This was the first time that we were doing this drill so we kept the steps very simple and easy to follow. The drill lasted for 7 minutes after which Mrs. Sheel ,the headmistress announced the end of the drill on intercom and asked the teachers to resume their classes.
By and large it has been a satisfactory mock drill. It will instill awareness amongst the students and at the same time has sensitized to some extentthe students and staff for any such eventuality.
MANJU SINGH RAWAT
MIDDLE SCHOOL
