New safety routines are coming to Aberdeenshire schools

Parents and carers in Aberdeenshire should look out for a council letter explaining new emergency procedures at their child’s school. Pupils and staff will begin practising evacuation, invacuation and lockdown responses as schools prepare for duties introduced by Martyn’s Law.

Aberdeenshire Council expects schools to carry out a drill annually. How that practice is delivered will depend on pupils’ ages, each building’s layout and the circumstances identified by the individual school.

Martyn’s Law is the informal name for the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. It came into effect in April 2025 with a two-year implementation period, giving public organisations time to prepare their procedures. UK statutory guidance followed in April 2026.

Three emergency responses backed by clear communication

The new protect duty requires schools to prepare for a terrorist or serious violent incident with three distinct operational responses:

• Evacuation: moving pupils and staff safely out of the school.
• Invacuation: moving them away from danger to a place within the school where the risk of physical harm is lower.
• Lockdown: securing the premises to prevent people from entering or leaving.

A fourth requirement supports each response: schools must be able to provide information and instructions to pupils and staff quickly.

The distinction between invacuation and lockdown is practical. Invacuation concerns moving people to a safer location inside the premises, while lockdown concerns controlling access to and from the building. Schools will incorporate both into their wider emergency arrangements alongside established fire and severe-weather plans.

Practice will be adapted for pupils’ ages

The council says schools are not being asked to stage frightening or highly realistic scenarios. In some settings, practice may consist of a discussion about following staff instructions. Older learners may be shown how to move calmly to a designated safe space.

There is no general requirement for pupils to hide beneath desks. Each headteacher will receive guidance on explaining the procedures without introducing alarming hypothetical situations. The emphasis will be on where pupils should go, what instructions they should follow and how the school will keep everyone informed.

Education and Children’s Services director Laurence Findlay said the work was intended to reduce harm and improve coordinated decision-making, rather than create an atmosphere of fear. Schools already prepare for unlikely emergencies such as fires or severe weather, he said, and the additional routines follow the same precautionary principle.

No schools are being singled out as higher risk

Aberdeenshire Council is not assigning particular drills to schools considered more at risk. Staff will assess every school according to its own layout and circumstances, identifying credible protective measures and suitable internal safe spaces.

The authority has acknowledged that families may connect the plans with changes to the national terrorism threat level. Its stated approach is to remain alert without causing alarm, and it describes the incidents covered by the framework as low probability. The council also said it had not recently needed to activate these procedures in response to a real incident.

For staff, the duty means learning how to make and communicate protective decisions under pressure. For pupils, it means becoming familiar with calm instructions in the same structured way that they learn established emergency routines.

Education committee chair David Keating said the intention was not to turn schools into fortresses, but to give staff and students clarity about where to go and how to respond.

School visits will continue over the next 12 months

The confirmed implementation sequence is:

• April 2025: the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act entered its two-year implementation period.
• April 2026: the UK Government published statutory guidance on meeting its requirements.
• Coming months: schools will integrate evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication procedures into their existing emergency practice.
• Next 12 months: council staff will visit schools to review realistic risks, practical controls and possible safe spaces.
• Each year: the council anticipates that schools will conduct one drill.

The legislation followed the 2017 Manchester Arena attack and is named after victim Martyn Hett. His mother, Figen Murray, campaigned for stronger protective arrangements at publicly accessible premises.

Parents may receive general information about the routines, but individual school assessments and response plans will not be published. The council says those documents contain security-sensitive details and will remain available only to people who need them as part of safeguarding and emergency planning.

Source: Aberdeenshire Council News