ABSTRACT
Each day children go to school to learn and meet their friends; at the same time, they, their families and the whole school community assume that they will be safe from harm and distress. Yet each day, somewhere in the UK, a school will be faced with a critical incident of a type and severity that will significantly disrupt the functioning of the school and everyone attending as a pupil or member of staff. The press and television reports of disasters involving children and schools are particularly memorable. Whenever one is asked about school traumas, most people can recall a number of headline tragedies involving the death of children or school staff. Events such as the abduction and murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by a school janitor, and the sinking of the cruise ship Jupiter, are some British examples of large-scale school disasters. Internationally, there has been the killing of 32 students at Virginia Tech, USA, and the Finnish student who shot and killed 10 students before turning the gun on himself.
