How schools can comply with Martyn's Law and protect pupils and staff

The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, also known as Martyn's Law, received Royal Assent on Thursday 3 April 2025. Organisations now have a 24-month implementation period to make all necessary preparations to adhere to the new legislation.

The legislation intends to improve safety in publicly accessible places if a terrorist attack occurs. The types of premises the law applies to include primary and secondary schools.

The law divides premises into two categories according to their capacity. The responsibilities for those in the Standard Tier (capacity between 100 and 799 people) are less demanding than those for Enhanced Tier venues (capacity 800 or more).

Even if their capacity is 800 or over, childcare or primary, secondary, or further education premises will fall within the Standard Tier.

A consultation process on the requirements of Standard Tier premises ended in March 2024 and many of the suggestions are incorporated into the law as passed. The requirements for Standard Tier premises are intended to follow the established concept of being appropriate and reasonably practicable. The objective of the requirements is to implement simple procedures that could reduce harm and save lives in an attack.

Obligations for schools

One of the primary obligations of those responsible for Standard Tier premises is to implement procedures that, so far as reasonably practicable, reduce harm to the public and staff at the premises in the event of a terrorist attack. These include evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication.

They are intended to focus on outcomes, rather than processes, and the development of tailored and effective plans and procedures. Premises are not expected or required to make any physical alterations.

Settings with a maximum capacity of less than 100 will not be legally obliged to take action under Martyn's Law. However, the principles of Counter Terrorism Protect and Prepare can be adopted by schools of any size to ensure their communities are safeguarded.

Creating your response

When formulating plans and procedures, schools should focus on three main topics.

• Guide – how to direct people towards the most appropriate location.
• Shelter – establish how the site can lockdown and provide refuge for those on-site.
• Communicate – have a mechanism to communicate quickly and effectively with the appropriate people on the site.

In a school, the people who need help in the event of an incident are not all together in the same place at the same time. They could be in classrooms, offices or outside. Whatever the school size, this can make it challenging to guide and communicate with everyone appropriately in an emergency. This challenge is complicated because some people on-site need to be told what to do by a person of authority.

How RM Voice specifically supports Martyn's Law compliance

As part of the 'communicate' element of Martyn's Law, RM provides a cost-effective emergency response module for our RM Voice cloud telephone system. This allows schools to broadcast emergency alerts via their telephony system during a lockdown or terrorist threat, helping to fulfil the legislation's key requirements.

Direct support for the three key areas

Guide and communicate: The current Ofsted framework does not require inspectors to consider the need for lockdown alarms. However, DfE advice on protective security and preparedness states that lockdown, invacuation and evacuation are three response options to a live incident. RM Voice's security alerts and paging facility allow schools to broadcast whole-school emergency messages instantly.

Individual users or preset groups can be alerted or paged where a system-wide public announcement is not appropriate, such as during safeguarding and medical emergencies, when students cannot be left alone.

Reliable infrastructure for crisis response: Cloud-hosted telephony eliminates the need for any extra on-premise hardware – it simply requires a VoIP handset or alternative device at each location where calls are made and received. The system can be accessed on internet-enabled devices, used across multiple school sites, and managed via an intuitive dashboard. With >99.99% operational uptime using geo-diverse data centres and multiple resilience tiers, schools can depend on their communication system when it matters most.

Practical emergency management: The system's advanced call routing features enable calls to be directed to any extension, including groups for contacting multiple people at once – ideal for reaching senior leadership teams or safeguarding teams during a school lockdown. Time-of-day routing can be automatically set up to manage different scenarios, while the auto attendant feature offers immediate guidance to callers during emergency situations.

Additional benefits

RM Voice helps schools meet DfE requirements for lockdown event preparation without the need for additional public address systems. Its cloud-based platform means automatic system and security upgrades, while built-in fraud monitoring and detection systems provide alerts in the case of unusual call patterns or suspicious activity.

For trusts and federations, the system offers particular value with free inter-site calls between any RM Voice users, enabling coordinated emergency response across multiple locations.

This comprehensive approach to emergency communication ensures schools can meet their Martyn's Law obligations whilst benefiting from a robust, everyday telephony solution that supports all aspects of school operations.