Safer Schools: What Does Martyn’s Law Mean For Me?

Hi, everyone.

Welcome to the VIVI Safety Schools webinar. We'll just give it a moment or two to get everybody, give them a chance to sign in and then we'll get going. Good afternoon everyone and thank you so much for joining us. Today we're focusing on Martin's Law and what it means for schools. With this legislation moving forward, schools will need clear procedures to protect pupils, staff and visitors. Today we'll walk through those steps of how schools can get ready for this legislation. For those who are new to vivi, we're a communication platform built especially for schools. While many schools know us for our wireless screen sharing and digital signage, today we're here because of our work in emergency alerts. As Martin's Law places greater emphasis on preparedness and communication, VIVI helps schools meet these requirements. Just before we begin, today's session is being recorded and we will send the recording out via email afterwards.

If you.

If you've got any questions at any time, please do feel free to drop them into the Q and A panel. We'll cover as many as possible at the end in a live Q and A session with Lisa. If you'd like to speak to us about your school's emergency alerts communication plan, please get hold of us via our website or email after the session. We're happy to help you with any of your needs that you will have for today. I'm delighted to introduce today's speaker, Lisa Broadway. She is a counterterrorism expert who has advised schools, local authorities and government bodies on emergency preparedness, lockdown planning and threat response. Lisa has been working closely with schools on Martin's Law preparation and today she'll walk us through exactly what schools have in place or must have in place and what will be expected in terms of documentation, training and communication. And most importantly, where to start. Over to you, Lisa.

Hello everybody. Thank you. If you could just bear with me while I share my screen. Hopefully I can do that without any issues. And if, Cindy, you can let me know when you can see that as a full screen, that would be great.

It's working perfectly. Thank you, Lisa.

It's a good start. So, a little introduction. Thank you everybody for joining today and I know you're all very busy and it's probably pick up time at your schools. My name's Lisa Broadway and I'm a consultant specialist in counterterrorism emergency response for the education sector. So my background was home office predominantly. I did 20 odd years working at the home office in the world of intelligence, serious organized crime. And counterterrorism, where I specialised for most of my time. The last five years of my government service, I was asked to move over to the DFE to help the department start to think about how it could better support the sector from terrorist threat. So quite a tricky subject, not something that DFE had necessarily had to think about before, but an important subject nonetheless. In doing this, I led on Martin's Law for the education sector, so that the legislation that you see now, all the conversations that went on behind the scenes to get to that point for the education sector, that was me in consultation with key stakeholders across the sector. I also led on Instant response. You'll see the COBRA room down there. Whenever there was a terrorist attack that impacted the sector and most do you, directly or indirectly, I led for the department on that and making sure that schools, colleges, universities impacted, got the support they needed from government. I left the Department of education in 2023 and I now work independently to support the education sector. So I work with schools, colleges, training providers, universities, you name it, identifying any vulnerabilities at their settings, preparing in advance of legislation. And I should note that guidance for legislation is not yet out there. So everything that I'm telling you today is very much from a best practice perspective rather than this is what it says in the guidance, and this is what you must do to comply. I'm a member of the Security Institute, which is just a bit of a badge. You have to jump through a few hoops to get there to show that you've got the necessary expertise and qualifications and what have you experienced. And I'm also the Chair of Governors at my children's primary school. So important to note that, because I think it gives me a bit of an insight into the many plates that you're spinning on a daily basis. And this is just another thing that's come along that you've now got to think about. So hopefully today will help you start thinking about that and, you know, do pop in any questions or get in touch separately if you need any help. Okay, terrorism legislation, let's start with this. So firstly, just to give you a bit of context, context contest is the UK's counterterrorism strategy. And you'll already know about prevent, because you've all got to have prevent training and meet the requirements of prevent duty legislation that's been around for quite a few years. Pursue is another strand or pillar, we call it, of contests, and that's about catching the baddies before they do anything, ideally, but also all the work that goes on afterwards. So that's our counter terrorism police, that's our intelligence services that lead on that stuff. But what we're going to talk about today and what Martin's Law is about is the protect and the prepare bits of the counterterrorism strategy. So protect is what it says on the tin. It's protecting our borders, it's protecting our critical national infrastructure, but at the local level, it's about protecting our sites to make sure that somebody with ill intent couldn't do any harm. And prepare is about mitigating the impact of a terrorist attack. So at a strategic level, at a national level, that's about how well our emergency services work together, for example. But for schools, it's about having robust plans in place that would mitigate the impact of an attack were it to occur. So Martin's Law. Martin's Law is legislation to improve protective security across the UK. And Martin was one of the 22 victims of the Manchester arena attack back in 2017. And Martin's mum has campaigned tirelessly to get this legislation, which has taken an awful long time in place, and it was eventually gained royal assent earlier this year and it's known as the Terrorism Protection of Premises Act 2025. Now, there are two tiers to Martin's Law and it's important that I let you know about these and then I'm going to tell you something different, which is the bit that you need to focus on. But for most people within scope, for most sectors within scope, it looks like this a premises are an event that fits within either 200 to 799 people expected at any one time would fit within the standard tier and a premise or an event with over 800 would fit within the enhanced tier. And that's basically saying bigger places are more likely to experience an attack. Now, the standard tier focus is on that prepare bit that I just talked about. So effective emergency response plans and the enhanced tier, they must do that as well, but then they must also consider CT risk assessments, so counter terrorism risk and make sure they've got all that in place. Now there's an exception for education, or at least most education settings. And when I was having discussions with key stakeholders across the sector way back when, it feels like a long time ago, you know, there were concerns, another burden for the education sector. Do we really need this? Is it. Are schools publicly accessible? Aren't they already much safer than other places? Lots of debate and it was really critical that we got in place something that was proportionate. We didn't want to risk not Allowing the education sector to be in scope, because God forbid something awful happened, there'd be a lot of answers required to any inquiry as to why education wasn't in scope. So there was real agreement that it should be in scope. But actually what would be the proportionate thing for the education sector? And it was recommended, I recommended to ministers that actually allowing all of those education settings that currently must adhere to strict safeguarding legislation to sit within the standard tier of the duty was probably the proportionate thing that wouldn't be too onerous for the education sector, but would still improve security and preparedness across the sector. So that is what the legislation is for schools. All schools, no matter the size, will sit within the standard tier unless there are less than 200 people within that school on a daily basis. If you're sitting here and listening and you're a school with less than 200 people, I would say do this anyway, because the whole point of Martin's Law and the reason that we've got this legislation is that the terrorist threat is no longer easy to predict. We've seen horrible things happening in much smaller places, Southport being a key example. So even though you're not within scope of the duty, this is best practice. My advice is just do it. Okay. For higher education, I don't think there are any higher education establishments on here today, but for higher education, they will sit within whichever tier their capacity dictates. So there's no such thing, special exception for higher education. Okay, so what must you do then? So all schools with a capacity over 200 must, under Martin's Law, notify the Security Industry authority. So the security industry authority is the regulator, so you need to get in touch with them and say, hello, my school is within scope of Martin's Law, and you need to demonstrate that you've got in place effective procedures to mitigate the impact of a terrorist attack, which include evacuation in vacation and lockdown, and then communication, and that's the ability to communicate any of these responses across your site. Okay, before I go on, I'm just going to share some slides now, a few slides which I pop in here because I think it's really important that even though we're talking about terrorism, actually what we're doing, if we get this right for schools, is protecting our schools from a whole range of threats, not just those that are politically or ideologically motivated. And this is the reason that I was so passionate about pushing this and making sure that we got education within scope of this duty. A little bit of a trigger warning there's slides, there's some music. And none of this subject matter is nice, but hopefully you can understand why I'm showing you this.

I got some news today from the radio man. He spoke the words somber and as softly as he can the world stood still and the sky opened I made my way to fill up my coffee cup Then it occurred to me as the daylight sky shone blue Today's day that Johnny met June. He waited a while he knew that he would he was gonna hang around here for as long as could the days went by an hour's idle past he was never sure Just how long he would last but there's not much love in a lonely room Today's day that Johnny met June. Hey, my darling hey, my sweet I waited on a day when I knew we would meet hey, my son hey, my moon Today's the day that Johnny met you. Now we're starting over this place that we are more than pretty Underneath all the stars Love, Love is a burning thing oh, how I still love to hear you say oh and everything we ever heard about heaven is true Today's the day that Johnny met June Today's day at Johnny met you.

Okay, thank you for watching that. And it's a hard watch, and I've worked on many of those cases that are. That were on there. But I think it's really important. This isn't just about terrorism. We live in a time where, unfortunately, children are exposed to a lot more than they ever were. So I think it's just really important that we think through this stuff and make sure that our little ones are protected and even our bigger ones are protected when they're at school. So preparing for Martin's Law, a bit of a reminder. These are the things that you'll need to think about. Evacuation in vacuation, lockdown, and communication. I'm going to talk you through all of those, but I'm going to spend a bit more time on lockdown, because it's the one that's normally a bit of a head scratcher for schools. What I say to schools that I visit on a daily basis is use a new lens when you're looking at your schools. Everything that you do normally is safeguarding. It's child protection, it's health and safety. All very, very valid things, of course. But now looking through this horrible lens of terrorism and serious violence will help you understand where any vulnerabilities lie. Now, I do this with schools from a physical security perspective every day, but actually from a Martin's Law perspective, remember, it's that prepare. But it's your preparedness plans. Do they work? Would they work in the event of a serious threat at your site? Evacuation. So we've all got in place evacuation plans for accidental fire. We've done it ever since we were knee high to a grasshopper. We know not to get our coats or our things, to walk but not run, but move quickly to the nearest exit and go and wait in the playground. It's just normal and what we've always done. But have a look at your plans, your evacuation plans and think of other things that might require something slightly different than the norm. Bomb threats. Do you have in place plans for bomb threats? Would you go somewhere else in the event of a bomb threat? A lot of schools have this, but it depends where you are and what threats you've seen in the past. But it's best practice to have those plans in place. Suspicious package. Would you know what to do in the event of finding a suspicious package? Would you even know how to identify a suspicious package? So thinking through what you do in the event of finding something that's just not quite right. Fire after suspicious behavior. So this might be the fire alarm going off after. Maybe there's been some people hanging around, there's been some suspicious behaviour that you. That has caused concern or you can smell fumes or, or something like that. Where you feel that moving your children, your students out to pre designated assembly points might not be the safest thing to do. And there have been occasions in the past where terrorists and others have planned to set off a fire alarm to bring people out to places which is actually an attack site. I'm not suggesting that's going to happen in your schools. But these are the kind of worst case scenario things that we're thinking about actually. If something didn't feel right, what could we do instead? And how would you communicate any of those different responses? A fire bell is a fire bell. How would you, if you were on site that day and you'd seen something suspicious and you think you know what. Actually I think we might need to disperse somewhere else today. How would you quickly inform the rest of your team that that was the plan? So it's thinking through all these different things in vacuation and lockdown. Now I've put these two together because in vacuation is quite similar to lockdown, sometimes confused with lockdowns. A lot of confusion in. In school plans that I see. Evacuation is the opposite of evacuation normally. So we're moving everybody inside away from a threat that's Outside, but it can also be moving from one area of the building to another area of the building away from a threat. But it's often the start of a lockdown. So I'm going to cover these together. Lockdown. So lockdown is a response and it's something that's been developed over the years, particularly when we started to see terrorists using marauding attacks. So fast moving attacks where they just try to get as many people as possible. And the idea of a lockdown is basically to stop the person from getting to you, reduce casualties, wait for the police to come, they can be arrested and Bob's your uncle. So that's what we need to do. We need to make sure that we've got plans in our schools that are robust. Because I go to many schools that have lockdown plans that are primarily about a wild dog on the playground. I should say stray dog rather than wild dog really. But lockdown plans should be based on counterterrorism best practice. You may or may not have heard of this, this has been going around for years. But I recognise that if you're in the world of counterterrorism, you think everybody knows this stuff and they don't necessarily. So counterterrorism policing advice for anybody that's caught up in a marauding terrorist attack is run Hidetown. Run if you can to a place away from the attack. If you can't run, you hide. You hide away from the threat and you make sure that they can't see you. And then when it's safe to do so, you tell the police. Now, in education we often translate that to guide, shelter and communicate because it's not just us that's running, we've got a whole group of people that we also need to take care of. So thinking about run Hightel in the context of your lockdown procedures can be helpful. Why is it so difficult for schools? Well, you all know why it's so difficult for schools because you've never really had to do this before. Some might if you've had security threats or maybe inner city schools do this more often. There are many, many schools that have never really had to do this before and are quite worried about it. And in defence of my former colleagues within the Department for Education and Counter Terrorism Policing, it's really difficult to be too prescriptive about guidance because the guidance is very much, sorry, the lockdown is very much about the infrastructure in the setting where you are. So you know, whether you've got access, control that's automated, whether you've got a Bunch of keys that you walk around with. It's all very much about overlaying the principles of lockdown across your site. And that's not something that government would ever be able to do individually and come round to every school. And then when you've drafted your plans, you're like crumbs. How on earth do I know if this right? How do I assure my plans? Because most people don't put on job adverts that they need counterterrorism expertise when they're looking for a new school business manager or facilities manager or what have you. So it's really difficult to know if you're doing it right because you don't know what you don't know. So when I speak to schools, I try to simplify lockdown where possible. And I think there's a real culture, not just across education, but across everywhere, that you have these emergency plans and you read them once a year and you sign them off and say that you've read them and you don't think about. You just hope that something doesn't happen. And it's really important that our lockdown plans are clear and easy to recall in a situation where there's heightened stress and there's danger. So this is the way that I find works for schools. Think about three scenarios like this. The first is a threat beyond the perimeter of the school. So that could be the police calling and saying, we've got a prisoner on the loose, please can the school go into lockdown, we'll let you know when we've caught him. The second is a threat that's on the school grounds, so they've breached any secure perimeter you might have. And the third is a threat within a school building. And the reason that I break it down into these three things is because the critical actions are different for each of those things. So ask yourself these questions for each scenario. How would you alert the entire school that there's a threat? How would you secure your school in those scenarios? And how would you communicate with your staff during a lockdown? So you're going to be blown away by the high tech designs I'm about to use, but here we are. This is our level one, our scenario one, which I refer to as a level one lockdown. So there's our threat. He's not yet on the school site. What do we need to do? We need to communicate that there's a threat and then the focus of our actions. The first thing that we need to do is to make sure that our site is secure. So the threat cannot breach the perimeter and get onto our site. It will also be very sensible to bring everybody inside and make sure the building's secure as well. But the critical thing is making sure that the threat cannot come across the perimeter. Level two, this time, a threat is within the school grounds. Now, there'd be no point sending out our caretaker, site manager, whoever, into harm's way to secure the perimeter, because all that's going to do is put him in harm's way, but also keep the threat within the school grounds. So then our critical action is to communicate across the site that there's a threat within the school grounds, bring people inside, that's our evacuation, and secure the school as quickly as possible. Worst case scenario, level three, our threat is within the school. This could be an aggrieved parent that starts kicking off. This could be a staff member in mental health crisis. It could even be a student or a learner. We don't necessarily need to think about locking the doors. We need to communicate that the threat is within the school and then we need to look at securing individual spaces within the school that we can stay safe until the police get here. This is the stuff that you kind of see on the Daily Mail that children have been hiding under desks and things because something bad has been happening at school. They're the three levels. Other things to think through. Can doors lock? Who locks the doors? So many schools will have a site manager that has a big jumble of keys and they'll open up the site in the morning and they'll lock it down at night. Sometimes they work split shifts. They go in for a couple of hours during the day, they come back later and lock up after school club. What happens if Jim, our site manager, is at home having his lunch? Who's got the keys then? Do people know what those keys are? How do you lock your doors? So it's that, you know, this is again, going through that infrastructure at your school. So how resilient is this system? Where's the redundancy? Can you make sure that there's no gaps? If you've got to use physical keys, might be that every teacher has a key on their lanyard so they can just quickly lock the door in the event of a security threat, there's always a way around and it doesn't necessarily need to be really expensive. Automated access control. There are ways to do things. If doors don't have locks, how would you secure the room? There's all kinds of things on the market now, but even just an old Fashioned doorstop can be really good to put on the other side of a door to make sure that somebody couldn't get in. Can windows be locked? Do they have covers for our level one or our level two? The threat is outside, so we don't really want them to see in if they don't have covers. What could you do quickly to cover those windows? Maybe it's just as simple as having a lockdown box with some blue tack and some dark card in and we quickly cover those windows in the event of a threat. Outside internal doors and walls. So going back to our level three, so our threats in the school. So many schools have lovely glass panels and viewing panels for safeguarding reasons and just to make the school kind of open and inclusive. How would you cover those? If threats in the school, or is there somewhere that you can go and hide in that room where if somebody was wandering up and down the corridor, they wouldn't see you and all the people that you're trying to protect? Movement centres are really important as well. We're all trying to save the environment, save money. Lots of schools now have those movement sensors where you walk in the room, the light comes on. What happens? Is there an override button for lockdown or is it as simple as you just need to ensure that if you're in rooms with movement sensors, everyone has got to stay as still as possible. But it's worth knowing about this stuff. Are there any rooms where large numbers of people could shelter safely and other areas actually that should perhaps be avoided? So many school halls won't necessarily have thumbturn locks or anything like that. So would your plan then perhaps be anybody in the school hall during a lockdown, move as quickly as possible back to classroom and make sure you can secure yourself in there. Communication. So communication, a critical element of Martin's Law. How easily could you alert a response from multiple locations? There are lots and lots of things on the market these days. Alerts. Fire alarms are now turning to a different alert. So all different ways of communicating. Ideally, you'd be able to alert a response from multiple locations, so there's not one single point of failure. Many schools will have a lockdown alarm, but it's just from the office. And what happens if that person in the office is the person that's hurt? Because oftentimes the office is the first line of defence into the school. So it's not always that resilient to have just one button. Could you communicate across your entire site, inside and out? What if people are in forest school? What if People are sports day. How do you make sure that everybody knows that there's a threat and they need a response? How easily could you communicate different responses? So go back to my levels. I mean, it might be that in level one you don't need a critical response like a major alert, but it's actually we secure the perimeter and then we let staff know in a calm, controlled manner because the threat isn't imminent. But in a level three particularly, we need to make sure that everybody knows. How easily could you communicate with your colleagues during lockdown? So this might be a lengthy lockdown where we're waiting for police to arrive. Sometimes if it's a crime scene, you could be there for quite a while. How would you communicate to colleagues? Maybe if somebody's injured, maybe if you've seen the threat leaving, do you have the means to do that? So really important stuff that you need to be thinking through. Consider different times of the day when you're not all in your classrooms. Because quite often we do drills, even down to evacuation drills. Everybody's in the classroom. We know it's going to happen at 10 o'. Clock. It's all very straightforward and it works. A choice treat, but actually what happens when it's nativity play or everybody's out at sports day or there's, you know, some kind of event going on in the school? How would things differ? So to make sure that your plans are as robust as possible, think through these different scenarios and how might your plans differ and how would you communicate as well during those scenarios? Right. Assuring your plans. How do you know that your plans are any good? And it's really difficult and I think it's important that you see your plans as being constantly evolving. Every time you drill, you'll learn something new and I'll come on to drills in just a second. But review your plans again. Review your plans through that worst case scenario lens, test them and refine them. Something that I do with schools quite a lot is almost tabletop exercises, we call them in government, where you just think of a scenario, have a bunch of people around the room that know the school really well and what would you do if this happened? What would you do then? And this happens then and everybody can collectively think through and problem solve and that makes your plans as robust as possible, really. Drilling now. It's not yet known. Guidance, as I said at the start, guidance for Martin's Law has not yet been published and it's not yet known whether it will be mandated for schools to drill with pupils. Now I suspect it won't be and I certainly expect that it won't be for primary, but that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't. I work with many, many schools, primary schools that drill with pupils and they have a marvellous time. There's more concern from parents. Children generally enjoy a few minutes away from the lessons and, you know, playing hide and seek or what have you. It very much depends if you're not sure what to do. If you're nervous about it, I would say one drill with your staff. First of all, that's the most important thing. I'm just going to have a sip of water. Forgive me, I'm nearly there. The PSHE Association I worked with a lot in my former role say that for primary school children all they need to know is to follow the instructions of a trusted grown up in an emergency situation. But some schools choose to drill and some schools don't choose to drill. It's up to you, understand your context, understand, you know, your cohort of pupils or students. Have they got special educational needs and disabilities? Have they been through trauma in the past where lockdown might cause concerns, particularly for any children that perhaps ESOL that have been, you know, have come from other countries where trauma might be involved? There's lots of things to think through. Stage one, get your, make sure that your staff know what they're doing and then decide if you plan to drill with learners and you may wish to work for guidance and then you can, you can be guided by that. If you decide to drill with learners, I would say try to bring parents on the journey with, with them. There's a lot of nervousness about lockdown. People think about America, horrible things happening in schools and I think the message has to be this is about legislation, it's about improving preparedness, it's making sure that our children are as resilient as possible and they understand what to do in the event of a security threat. I think I might have finished, thank you, I've cantered through that. Thank you all for listening. Any questions, please let me know.

Thank you so much, Lisa, that was very insightful session and I'm sure a lot of questions are going to come through shortly. Before we move on to the Q and A session, I'd like to just introduce Sophie Samways from vivi. Sophie works with our schools and trusts across the UK to help improve school wide communication, ensuring that they have a simple, reliable system that supports both everyday teaching and safeguarding as well. So over to you Sophie. This will take a couple of minutes. And then we will move into Q and A. So please feel free to put any questions into the Q and A.

Thanks, Cindy. Yeah, and thank you, Lisa. That was very insightful. And, you know, I'm sure lots of us have learned, learnt lots today as well. So I'm just going to share my screen. I've just got a few slides to run through. So, as you can see here, VIVI is a global brand. We are currently working with over 2,400 schools and lots of classrooms and teachers, you know, so we understand and we know what we're doing and we're well backed, not just here in the uk, as Cindy sort of alluded to earlier on, we're not just emergency alerts. So I just wanted to show you a little bit about how we are a consolidated solution. We have wireless screen mirroring and that's what a lot of you might know us for. We want to untether the teacher from the front of the classroom on your existing devices. So VIVI will just work regardless of what you use already, which obviously makes it easy to use when it comes to adding it on as an emergency solution as well. And then we do the digital signage side of things as well. So keeping your students and staff informed, reaffirming those school values and just kind of spreading the word and utilising the screens that you've already got. We also cover announcements as well. So if you want to send out a text announcement on your screen saying that rugby has been cancelled tonight and make sure everybody gets home safe, or it could actually be a video broadcast, you know, your head teachers and principals might want to share some information. If you can't fit everybody in the hall, you can send that out to your classrooms as well. And then obviously the emergency alert side of things will take over all of your screens. Like you can see behind me for those critical moments where it really counts and you need that visual alert. And I'll also mention that the announcements can be layered over the top of the emergency alerts at any time for that communication piece as well. So I'm just going to show you a few slides, a bit like Lisa's level one, two and three drawings, just to kind of explain how VIVI can work in different areas. So, as Lisa has mentioned, you can plan your lockdowns. We hear lots of schools have planned it all and it doesn't always go to plan and obviously sometimes the unexpected things can happen, unfortunately. So you can see here we've got a map of a school and you'll notice there's not always just screens in classrooms. These days you have them in the corridors. You might have a canteen area. You'd likely to have them in the reception, potentially with some digital signage running. And VIVI has a really easy to use app that anybody can have access to across your school to send out that information. So, like Lisa mentioned, you might be here in the reception area and you cannot trigger that button. So VIVI does work on any device via our app and our web app, which is really handy. So there's just a quick image here and it shows you how simple it is to choose where this information is going to go. Is this going to the whole site? Is it going to specific areas? So, as Lisa mentioned, you've got the level 1, 2 and 3. You know, if the threat's outside of school, we can send it to the whole area. But actually, if the threat's, you know, inside the school, you don't want the corridors and reception areas showing that potentially you're in lockdown and secure. You might just want to place that into your classrooms. So VIVI does come with stock images here to get you started, but based on your plan, you can personalise all these images as well to ensure that they fit with what you've decided. And as I mentioned, you can overlay the announcements on top. So, you know, if you're waiting for the police and you still want to stay, stay put, you can send that as an announcement over the top and VIVI will log all of this for you to audit later on in the backend management system. Okay, so just a little zoom in here of how you can differentiate the message at different places. And actually we integrate with some systems as well. So if you do have door systems or entry systems, VIVI can integrate with those as well. So you can trigger instant, quick messages without having to go to lots of different systems as well. So it just shows the flexibility. And this is just one of our schools, Amesbury, that have actually been using VIVI for a while now, and they do have different buildings across their campus and they said it's revolutionized the way that they send out their emergency procedures and it's exactly what they needed to help student and staff safety across their campus. So generally, you know, this is how VIVI can help with the Martin's Law area, you know, that communication piece. And because VIVI works on any device, any platform, it's really quick and easy to implement. So we can, you know, discuss with you. We do free trials, we do demonstrations and we can find out what your plans are. Already and see if we can put those on and sort of enhance what you do. Thank you very much. I'll hand back to our host and do our Q and A.

Thank you so much, Sophie. Right, we've got a couple of questions coming through. You are welcome to keep them coming as we. As we go. So, Lisa, just to clarify, schools with less than 200, they don't actually need to comply with Martin's Law?

No. Legally they won't need to, but they should be doing this stuff, have those emergency plans in place. But that's just Lisa Broad's opinion. As opposed to hmg, a best practice solution. Right?

Yeah.

Do schools with public venues on the same campus still class as standard tier?

Well, that's a really good question and in short, it's to be confirmed and it'll depend what those public venues are. So some schools, for instance, I've been working with a school very recently that's got its own swimming pool, but at weekends that becomes a swimming pool that the whole community uses and so on and so forth. So I'd say one, think about the capacity of that, of that venue, whatever it might be, that facility, and ask yourself, when would it, as a standalone, would it fit within either of those tiers? But to. If it's owned by the school, the likelihood is it will sit within the standard tier. But guidance, I don't want to preempt guidance because this detail has been worked out since I left the DFE and it would be wrong of me to say, oh, I think it's this and I think it's that. So, but it's a really good question and it's really, it's really important. So one look at the. The capacity of that building. So if it's a cafe that perhaps has 20 people in, actually wouldn't be within scope anyway, but if it's a sports hall that quite often has 200 people in, it might be within scope of standard tier. It's worth noting, and I don't know if I said this earlier, but Martin's Law covers events and premises, so events of over 799 or 800 will fall into enhanced here. But not for schools, the exception remains. So even if you're a school that has a mayday fete where 2,000 people might come and enjoy, enjoy the fate and the day and the fare afterwards and what have you, that will still sit within the standard tier. I would say, from a best practice perspective, when you're doing your risk assessment for health and Safety, for your fate, think about Terrorism and serious violence just to make sure that you've got the right control measures in place. But legislation won't mandate that you do do that.

Brilliant. Thank you so much, Lisa. What about during school events like an open evening and, and the whole school is open. How do you recommend people plan for that?

So again, that's a, it's from a Martin's Law perspective. You, you won't necessarily need to do anything other than make sure that your emergency plans are robust and you think through those different scenarios. So when I said earlier nativity play, you know, that could be open day or what have you, just from a general security best practice perspective, I would be risk assessing my open day and considering the worst case scenario. So, you know, the likelihood of this is very slim, but it's still really important. So does staff know what to do? And there are simple things that you can do to make sure that you give off. Your school gives off a real posture, security posture, high vis vests, people with radios, you know, positive security messaging that somebody with an intent that was thinking about doing something would look at your school and go, do you know what? I'm not going to bother. Because they look like they're on it. So the control measures don't need to be physical security infrastructure. They can just be really robust policies, plans and kind of visual security that make people think that school knows what it's doing.

Thank you.

Just back to the numbers. The 200 or the 79, does that refer to just the pupils or pupils plus staff?

So it's both. And I think that the act itself says something like it is reasonably expected that at any one time there would be however many. So you won't need to necessarily provide your registers or your admissions data for that year. But it's, you know, if you've got 187 pupils, the likelihood is that you're over 200 and you're going to be in that standard tier.

I'm going to just combine these two questions. So are there any examples or ideas or plans for how to manage various systems that people could go and download, for instance, from somewhere? And are there any plans or ideas for how to manage situations in larger special schools where pupils have learning, pupils have learning difficulties, ASD, etc? Any suggestions are appreciated.

Okay, so question 1. Is this about guidance or templates or.

Yeah, some templates or examples of desktop exercises.

Okay, so one on. So the Department of Education produced a document which was published I think in 2024 called the protective Security and Preparedness Advice and Guidance for Education settings that can be found on Gov uk, it can be found on Protect uk, which is the counterterrorism policing platform hub. And it's something that we worked on with, I worked on with counterterrorism policing for quite a few years. There's also an E learning package called ACT for Education. ACT stands for Action Counters Terrorism. And the ACT awareness package has been out across various different sectors for years and years. But what we did was changed it slightly so it was more fitting for education settings. That's free. It takes about 45 minutes. It's a bit clunky, but it's worth doing and it gives you a whole load of insight into things like just better security awareness, spotting suspicious behavior, what to do if you find that suspicious package, things like that. So really good, sensible advice for schools. That was the first question I forgot. And they said, oh, send school specialist school schools from an emergency planning perspective, I think in the same way that you'll have in place for your evacuation, you'll have peeps in place for all of your learners. It's looking at those through this new lens. So actually, how will we manage? So, for instance, and I worked recently with a special school who were really worried about drilling for all, you know, whole range of reasons, but kids with really complex needs, I would say just don't drill, let's drill with the staff. Make sure the staff know exactly what they need to do. And unless government eventually tell you that you must then drill with learners, then we'll deal with that when that happens. But make sure that staff are as prepared as possible from a lockdown perspective. It's going to be really difficult to keep some of those learners silent during a lockdown. I completely get that and maybe that simply won't be possible. But I expect, and I could be wrong, but the very nature of your school will mean that the physical security infrastructure at that school is probably heightened. So actually the risk may be lower. I'm not saying that always, but you know that there'll be, as long as you in a lockdown situation, as long as you can secure that room. If the people in that room can't stay silent, then they can't stay silent. But hopefully the police are on their way, you're secure in there and the police will come and they'll get rid of the perpetrator and take them away. So it's very complicated and feel free to drop me a line afterwards. And I don't mind kind of sharing, but I think I might be rambling a little bit now.

Thank you so much, Lee, for not rambling at all. As a large secondary school, we have evacuation and lockdown policies already. Well, we will review these from a new lens, like you've said. On a practical level, what measures do we need to take now and what do we need to document in order to be compliant?

Well, that's a really good question. And the answer is we don't know, because there's. So far, there's been no templates provided, no guidance making sure that you document, I would advise, make sure that you've got your. Your procedures documented, which you will have already. Any drills or any reviews, make sure that they're documented and any. Any training that you do. But as yet, there's nothing stipulating precisely what you need to do, and that's not very helpful of me. I'm sorry, but it'd be wrong of me to lie.

Do all schools have to notify the saa, the sia, and how do they regulate?

According to the Act? They will have to notify the sia. How they do that, I don't know. From a regulation perspective, I think the SIA are probably still scratching their heads.

They.

And working out how they're going to do that, I expect. And it was always suggested that it would be very much a carrot as opposed to a stick. First of all, while the legislation is embedded, from a school's perspective, I would guess that it would be if there is an incident or if there is a complaint about a school, perhaps they might get involved. But it's meant to be very constructive and about guidance rather than the Ofsted call. You know, there's going to be an inspection tomorrow.

Do you have any idea when further guidance will be coming out?

I'm hearing 2026. There's a lot to work through, but I don't know, that's just kind of on the grip. Fine.

Yeah.

Is there going to be any additional government funding to improve or enhance physical security in schools?

I don't think so, and I think specifically for schools, because physical security or protective services security is not part of the requirements of Martin's Law. It's very much about emergency response. I'm guessing that's going to be a no.

Yeah.

Okay. That looks like all we have at the moment. Anything that you would like to conclude with, Lisa?

I don't know, really. I'm sure you've all heard far more than enough from me, I think. Don't be too worried about it. I would say. I would say just be clear, understand what you need to do. In terms of making sure that your school's as safe as possible. So think about this rather, rather than worrying about compliance with legislation, think about it through the lens of making sure that you're prepared as possible, your staff are trained, think about when you've got supply staff coming in and make sure you've got procedures in place to make sure that they're aware of what they need to do. So worry not. I'm not. I'm saying forget about compliance, but it shouldn't be about being worried about not in compliance, it should be about making sure you've got the robust, effective plans in place, if that makes sense.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you to everybody for joining us. If you have got any questions that we haven't answered, please do feel free to email us on vivienfo viviinfo infovivy.co.uk and we can answer any of your questions. You can also just reply to the the email link where we send out the recording. We'll be happy to facilitate any interactions with Lisa that you may need, so just be in touch. But thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa.