HAVING acknowledged my arrival at Huntington School by signing the book at reception, I was issued with a visitor's badge, complete with a plan of the school on the back. Thus, within moments, I was incorporated into the school disaster plan.

If there was to be a disaster in the next hour, my visitor status would see me ushered off the premises pronto. No point in worrying about guests when children and staff might be in danger.

A minute later the disaster plan's author arrived. He introduced himself as deputy head David Kibble. The badge hanging around his neck confirmed it.

"After completing the plan, I sent copies to the police and the North Yorkshire social services," he told me over a coffee in his office.

"The police said 'it's very good. But the biggest thing you can do is to ask all your staff to wear badges and, secondly, to challenge anyone who isn't wearing a badge in school'. We put it in the plan."

Badges won't stop a Thomas Hamilton wandering into the playground, he admits - nothing could. But it might deter others.

Mr Kibble had almost finished Huntington School's disaster plan when the Dunblane massacre shook the world. It was the worst of a series of high-profile tragedies involving school children in recent years.

A pupil was murdered at a Middlesbrough school; a number of pupils died in the Lyme Bay canoe tragedy; students taking an exam in Northern Ireland were hurt when a man wielding a flamethrower burst into the hall; and four sixth form girls from Harrogate Grammar School were killed in a car crash.

Mr Kibble does not believe that this suggests schools are any less safe, rather that "we have probably had a bad run.

"Also, some of the experiences have happened on trips abroad. Years ago, there weren't very many trips abroad - now there are loads.

"In this school, the number of staff who want to take school trips abroad has virtually doubled this year."

Mr Kibble began working on a school disaster plan five years ago when the previous headteacher, Dr Keith Wragg, pointed out that Huntington had a fire drill, but little else.

When the completed project was featured in a headteacher's newsletter Mr Kibble was deluged with requests for copies. As a result, this week he published the 124-page Safety and Disaster Management In Schools and Colleges training manual. It covers all imaginable scenarios, from a Dunblane-type incident (don't press the fire alarm - "as a result, perhaps, 1,500 targets would immediately present themselves"); to successfully handling a telephone conversation with a verbally-aggressive parent.

Much of the book is given over to ways of preventing problems. Always back up your computer files and worksheets, Mr Kibble urges.

One school lost the lot in a fire.

In the case of school trips, a form is included for staff to complete before they go. This ensures they have checked everything from the recommended dress code to each pupil's medical records.

At Huntington, teachers taking a trip are issued with a one-sheet guide as to what to do in an emergency. This includes contact numbers of the senior teachers back at home. At least one of them will have an up-to-date passport in order to fly out at a moment's notice.

Staff are happy to spend a few minutes filling out the paperwork, Mr Kibble said. "This piece of paper is designed so that when they fill it in they are absolutely assured they have done everything they can do to ensure the children's safety.

"Nobody has said 'do we have to fill in this piece of paper?' Because they know they're more secure for doing so."

Disasters cannot be legislated against and the book goes through ways of coping with an incident as it unfolds.

Some of the exercise drills make chilling reading. "As pupils make their way on to the sports field the scene is one of major catastrophe. A light aircraft has crashed on to one of the school buildings; you can see around the building confused colleagues and pupils, some of them crying..."

Soon, according to the drill, the press are on the scene. Then parents start making their way to the school. What do you do with them?

"Put yourself in the position of the parent," Mr Kibble said. "What would you want if there was a disaster? Your child.

"Parents are the most important thing in a child's life. If parents came and wanted to take children away we would say, fine. It may well be that we would have to provide counselling, eventually."

After dealing with the event itself, the school must decide how to approach the fall-out. Often, the best course is to get the school up and running again as soon as is feasible.

"One head said he wanted to get the pupils together as quickly as possible, to stop them wandering the streets, grieving."

It takes many years to recover from the trauma. But taking even minor steps - like changing the tone of the fire alarm which has become indelibly associated with an incident - can help the process.

Mr Kibble wrote the manual, which is dedicated to his five-year-old son, Jonathan, after talking in confidence to headteachers who had coped with a disaster. But a lot is based on his own experience, particularly as a naval reserve officer. "If you think about it," he said, "defence training is all one big disaster plan."

For most of his 25 years in teaching Mr Kibble, 48, worked in schools that did not have a disaster plan. Now he has devoted many hours to producing one - hoping he will never have to use it.

But you cannot be too careful. As I left, he took my visitor's badge and handed it into reception. Then he watched me leave the premises.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.