Lockdown for a large school
Two and a half thousand pupils, several blocks, a sports hall and a site nobody can cross in under four minutes. What actually works, and what to ask for.
Scale changes the problem, not the duty
A 2,500-pupil secondary is still a standard duty premises. Schedule 1 puts every education setting there whatever the numbers, so the Act asks you for the same four procedures it asks of a village primary. What scale changes is whether you can actually perform them.
On a small site the informal route works. Somebody runs to the office, the office makes a decision, and a bell or a shout covers the building. On a large site every one of those steps breaks. The person who sees the incident may be in a block the office cannot see. The decision-maker may be teaching. The far end of the site may not hear anything at all.
So the design question for a large school is not “what shall we buy”. It is: how does every adult on this site get told, within seconds, wherever they are and whatever they are doing — and how does the person in charge find out whether it worked?
A lockdown on a large site needs all three
Most suppliers can sell you one of these. The reason to talk to us is that the three have to be designed together, and we are the only one of the three trades in the room.
Telling the adults
Cosafe. Every member of staff alerted in seconds with the action for their role, a live view of who has responded, and the log writing itself.
Securing the doors
Wireless locks on the doors you already have, held from a phone or the office, block by block or the whole site. Free egress from the inside, always.
Reaching the pupils
A spoken instruction in every room is a voice alarm or PA system. Most schools have one. Where the drill shows a gap, we design and install it from our fire and life-safety side.
No platform speaks to 2,500 pupils, and it should not
This is the question every large school asks and the one suppliers fudge. Cosafe alerts the adults. It is not a tannoy. For a lockdown that is the correct design — you want every teacher told silently and instantly, deciding room by room, not a broadcast that tells an intruder exactly what is happening. Where you do need a spoken instruction everywhere, that is a separate system and we will price it as one.
Silent to the room, loud to the staff
A teacher gets the alert and the action. The class sees a teacher acting calmly, not a siren.
The office is not a single point of failure
Anyone can raise it. If the office is the affected part of the site, the procedure still runs.
Acknowledgement is the measure
On a big site the useful question is not ‘did we send it’ but ‘which rooms have not responded’.
Practise it before you rely on it
Cosafe configures and trains, and runs a pilot as drills and tabletop exercises. Insist on that being in the quotation.
Including us
If a proposal for a site this size does not answer all six in writing, it is not a proposal yet.
- How does a member of staff with no phone in their hand get told? Name the rooms and the fallback.
- What are the delivery channels — app push only, or SMS and voice as well? Get it in the quotation.
- Which doors actually lock, who signed that off against the fire risk assessment, and does every one still open from the inside?
- How long from one person raising it to every adult being told? Ask them to demonstrate it, not describe it.
- What does leadership see while it is running, and what does the record look like afterwards?
- What happens at 4pm on a Saturday when a hirer is in the sports hall and the office is empty?
In order, and the first two are free
- 1
Read the procedure you already have
We start from your lockdown plan, not a template. Most of what is wrong with it is free to fix.
- 2
Walk the site with the fire strategy in hand
Which doors can be locked, which must not be, what releases on alarm, and where the blind spots are.
- 3
Run the communication drill
Before any quotation. It shows you the real gap and it means you buy a solution to a problem you have watched happen.
- 4
Scope the three parts together
Alerting, doors and voice, priced separately so you can phase them.
- 5
Install and certify
Our own engineers, DBS checked, scheduled around your term rather than ours.
- 6
Configure, train, then drill again
A system nobody has practised with is a system that fails on the day.
Questions a school this size asks
Is a school this size in the enhanced tier?
Do we have to do anything yet?
Can we use the system we already have for the doors?
What about the sports hall lettings at the weekend?
This is not legal advice
Martyn’s Law is not yet in force and no product makes an organisation compliant with it. The duty sits with the responsible person. We sell systems that make a written procedure something your staff can actually perform — that is a different claim, and a defensible one.
Sources
Everything on this page is taken from these. Checked 25 September 2026.
- Schedule 1 paragraph 13 — childcare and early years
- Schedule 1 paragraph 14 — primary and secondary education
- Section 5 — public protection procedures
- Section 6 — public protection measures (enhanced tier)
- Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025: statutory guidance (Home Office)
- ProtectUK — Martyn's Law
- How Martyn's Law will affect education settings (Department for Education)
- Cosafe — UK
- Cosafe — school lockdowns and security incidents
- Cosafe — UK schools
- Cosafe — multi-site emergency readiness
We will walk a site this size before we quote it.
For a school of this scale the survey is the work. You get a written summary either way, and it is yours whether or not you buy from us.
Book a free site survey Call 01727 822 833Tell us about the site
Send us a few details and an engineer — not a call centre — will come back to you within one working day.
This is not a monitoring centre
If you are dealing with an incident now, call 999. This line is monitored during office hours.