Lockdown at Gold Creek school

My son was in the room which had windows smashed. He tells me the kids who did it – about Y9/10 boy and girl – were upset at treatment they’d received from some other students in their class, and since they were holding golf clubs due to a sports activity, they used them on various targets.
While the kids throughout the school may have been scared at the time, it’s become quite a highlight of the last week.

I am also a year 8 student at goldcreek and i was at school when the ”lockdown” was happening i was out of class doing a job for my teacher when two aboriginal children one boy in year 9 and the girl in year 9/10 the girl was smashing glass botlles on walls and sweaing at teachers and students. her brother then walked in and gave her a big stick and he had golf club he had taken from a p.e class on the oval. I went up stairs and watched them as they yelled and smashed glass windows hit walls swore and threatened teachers hit doors and go crazy i went into my class and sat under my desk with the class for an hour and a half. Later on i was told that my techer had been punced scratched and had her hair ripped out. there were several teachers who were attacked and also 2 students who were attacked one of the kids was hit with a golf club ove the back and had a big bruise and cuts on him. Now i just found out that the two kids only get a 3 week suspension which i think isnt enough considering they cause so much damage.

jasere said :

only golf clubs people not hide under a table fire arms

“Lock Down” is just a simplified, standard procedure for dealing with any potentially threatening situation (parent, student of the school, outside student, suspicious knife-wielding ninjas etc), just as a “emergency evacuation procedure” covers fires, chemical spills etc etc…

The worst case scenario (fire arms) needs to be the standard proceedure, better to be over prepared, than under… I’d much rather hide my students under their desks for a studente going on a verbal/chair-throwing rampage (happened), than not do it and have my last thought being “shit, masked gunman” or more likely “shi…”.

the proceedure involves a special tone over the PA, locking of all internal/external doors, turning off lights and moving students out of site (due to the nature of most classrooms – the “under desks” seems to be the general method).

Anyhow – I’m not going to try and take on a student armed with a chair, tomato stake, golf club, fence pole etc, I’ll let the police sort it out when they get there, that’s their job – not what I wanted to get into teaching for… and it certainly isn’t worth my job because I ‘overdid it’…

Good to hear nobody was really hurt. Except the pride of the adult hit in the head with a golf club by a child.

I am in year 8 at Gold Creek and was in that lockdown.
I have to say, people saying they could just take golfclubs off them are completely wrong and they won’t school aged, they were college aged!
They hit one of our teachers in the back of their head and injured a few students.
About 8 or 9 windows smashed.

The scary part is, we were under the desk for about an hour.
It started by a scream and a bang then everyone ran out to look but then straight away our teacher yelled out to get inside and get under out desks and don’t talk at all. As soon as we got inside over the PA it said a lockdown was happening at it was code red.

I’ve never been more scared in my life. I’m just glad it’s over.

ACT schools have a colour coded response system to deal with a range of emergency situations. I got a look at the guide book at a high school when it was left in the front office. I don’t remember which colour was for what but they had a separate plan for fire, bomb threat, firearms incident, natural disaster (storms, earthquake & flood) and other violent incidents.

jasere said :

Don’t know about anyone else but I think I could over power and disarm two Kids with golf clubs

only golf clubs people not hide under a table fire arms

Yes but how many 5yr olds could you take on at one time?

jasere – I think I could probably overpower them, but they were school aged children doing the damage – I don’t think I could guarantee that the kids wouldn’t get hurt while I was disarming them. I think that I wouldn’t be able to deal with the possible legal issues afterwards for the cost of replacing a window.

ah but if you touched the kids while disarming them Jasere you would be charged immediately with a half dozen offences and the feral parents would be paid thousands by 2nd rate tabloid TV programmes to whinge and moan about how their priceless darlings were just misunderstood and it wasn’t their fault.

Don’t know about anyone else but I think I could over power and disarm two Kids with golf clubs

only golf clubs people not hide under a table fire arms

+ 1 benett’s “Tasers for Teachers” Program has a nice ring to it 😀

I agree they implemented a policy well. Would be one of the few good things they’ve ever done. My dealings with Gold Creek have been less than satisfactory.

Put the kids in nuke-proof bunker. Ensure the bunker has no Internet or mobile-phone capability – wouldn’t want them
searching for child porn whilst in the bunker. Should be safe, that is, unless the teacher that is in there with them is a psychopathic, murderous, peddo-communist in disguise. I say we shouldn’t know anything about what happened. And really, teachers (who aren’t commy peddo’s) should be armed with tasers.

These Golf-club wielding maniacs were probably outraged due to the fact that their prospect of getting a beer after 3pm in NSW is being questioned. Though I doubt that.

Hang on…what???

Jazz said :

Why do you say that grumpy? It would appear that despite its other perceived failings they’ve managed to implement a rarely used policy quite well.

If she said anything that wasn’t negative, then she can’t have the name of grumpyrhonda now can she?

grumpyrhonda said :

So glad my kids are not in that school any more.

Me too. I have no beef about their lockdown proceedures, it was their total inability to teach an above average child or another child that didn’t want to be there. Hopeless and quite frankly a bit of a joke.

The biggest mistake i made since coming to canberra was to think that new equated to good school.

grumpyrhonda said :

So glad my kids are not in that school any more.

I finished there myself at the end of 2007 and while yes there were some little turds in the years below and a few in my year, there were some real doozies in terms of burnouts in the years above me. But we never had a lockdown though…..

So glad my kids are not in that school any more.

The kids coped well, the school put its procedures in place, informed parents, and asked for the situation not to be gossiped about so that the police have a chance to investigate it thoroughly. As a parent of a child attending the school, I am happy with how it was handled. I suggest, though, that if you want more information, that you contact the school or the department of education, and leave the police to do their jobs, and the teachers and students to deal with what happened.