How to deal with violence in the classroom (UK)? After the recent death of 61 year old Spanish teacher Anne Maguire in Leeds today, what is the best way to deal with violence in schools in the UK as it happens?

Most schools in the UK do not have a lockdown / violence procedure as it is very rare.

However can we deal with this as it happens effectively in the UK?
In the US, a college student's risks of being robbed, assaulted, or raped on campus are each roughly 3x10-3 per year. This is higher than we'd like it to be -- well, we'd like the rate to be zero. One's chances of being victimized can probably be reduced by taking commonsense precautions such as calling Campus Safety to ask for an officer to walk along if one has to cross a college campus in the dark. I don't know how much of this violent crime is alcohol-related, but certainly alcohol is involved in many off-campus incidents.

As a teacher, there are some common-sense things you can do if there is a violent incident, such as a shoving match or scuffle. Identify yourself as a teacher to the student who has been violent. If the person is your student, tell him/her to leave class until the next meeting. Call 911 and report the incident to Campus Safety.


  Most schools in the UK do not have a lockdown / violence procedure as it is very rare.


The reason we do have lockdown procedures and lockdown drills here in the US is not because school shootings are common in the US. In the US, a college student's annual risk of dying in a school shooting is something like 3x10-6 per year. Since the risk of being raped is roughly 1000 times higher than the risk of being a victim of a school shooting, this idea of a lockdown drill is clearly disproportionate. It's based on cultural and
emotional responses, not a realistic assessment of risks. Although
events like the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and the Newtown shooting
are culturally powerful, they should not be allowed to take over our
lives or evoke a dysfunctional response.

There is no intellectually rigorous evidence for any particular lockdown procedure, drill, training, etc. For example, my school wanted us to show our students a video advocating a "run, hide or fight" strategy, but there is no clear evidence to support this strategy.

Furthermore, drills detract from instruction and may violate students' rights by locking them up in a classroom and telling them that they can't leave.