Emergency or critical incident plan: guidance and examples

All schools should have an emergency plan

Your focus in creating this plan (also called a critical incident plan) should be on:

• Minimising disruption to pupils’ education
• Maximising the number of pupils receiving face-to-face provision
• Helping staff respond effectively to an emergency on site or during an educational visit

This is explained on page 5 of the DfE’s non-statutory emergency planning and response guidance.

You must also comply with legal requirements, including health and safety law, and statutory requirements.

You can include your COVID-19 outbreak plans in your emergency plan 

The DfE’s emergency planning and response guidance was updated and replaced the COVID-19 contingency framework for schools on 1 April.  

Instead, you can include your planned response to a severe outbreak of COVID-19 in your emergency plan, which should include your plans for responding to any serious public health incidents. However, you are free to keep this separate if you'd