Erskine Stewart Melville will hold a private school lockdown drill on Friday for pupils as young as three, in a move the school says is meant to prepare children for a security threat in the local community. The drills will teach even the youngest pupils how to keep very quiet and hide if a threat ever makes it safer to stay inside.

Principal Anthony Simpson said the school is not responding to an immediate lockdown but is putting regular practice in place now because children should know what to do if faced with a dangerous animal, a major fire or chemical leak, extreme weather, or another security threat. He said staff would talk to students in an age-appropriate and reassuring way before, during and after the drill, and that extra support would be available for those who might find it harder.

The announcement lands squarely because it brings a US-style safety drill into a Scottish private school setting and extends it to children as young as three. For parents reading the letter, the detail that matters most is not the label but the age: children still learning how to sit still, follow instructions and make sense of the world will soon be asked to practise silence under pressure.

That is where the reaction sharpened. One father said, “This isn’t America,” and said he had been told the drill could prepare pupils for situations such as a wild animal on the school grounds, a fire or a storm. He called it “extremely alarming” and asked whether the school knows something parents should know. A mother drew a line between the new drills and fire evacuations, saying those make sense because fire is a real threat, while she was deeply uneasy about her younger child having to hide under a desk and stay silent. She called the idea “quite ghastly and unnecessary.”

Simpson tried to calm that concern, saying the school routinely practises fire evacuations and that lockdown drills are being added regularly because, if a genuine emergency ever did happen, everyone in the building should be prepared and confident about how to keep themselves and others safe. He also said it was very unlikely the school would ever need to go into lockdown. The unanswered question is why the school decided now was the moment to introduce the drills at all, and whether Friday’s exercise will become part of school life beyond this week.