A police officer for every school to beat teenage knife crime

Schools should have police stationed permanently on site to search pupils for knives, ministers said yesterday. 

In the latest measure to crack down on spiralling youth crime, police chiefs have been asked to free up enough officers to work in every school that requests one.

They would patrol corridors, playgrounds and surrounding streets to tackle truancy and indiscipline and frisk pupils for knives and other weapons. 

Schools minister Lord Adonis said head teachers who already have officers in their schools as part of a pilot scheme are 'warmly supportive' of the move. 

He told the annual conference of the teaching union Voice yesterday that ministers favour a major expansion of the Safer Schools Partnerships scheme. 

Last year teachers were given powers to search pupils for weapons but school discipline tsar Sir Alan Steer revealed this month that they rarely use them. 

He said he believed many schools instead took a 'common sense' approach and called in the police. 

'Nothing is more imperative than that we keep weapons out of schools,' said
Lord Adonis. 

'This is why we gave schools the power to search without consent pupils they suspect are carrying weapons, and why we propose to extend this power.' 

The SSP initiative originated in the U.S. and involves dedicated officers working with a single school or a group of schools. 

More than 450 schools are already part of the scheme, with hundreds more expected to sign up. 

'We've been encouraging local police forces to make more officers available for the scheme,' Lord Adonis said.

'Schools in more challenging areas can particularly benefit from working with specially trained police officers, in terms of ensuring pupil safety. 

'Head teachers are warmly supportive of engagement with appropriately trained officers, and the officers work effectively within the school community.

Scourge: Ministers aim to drive knives out of schools

'They are not regarded as outsiders but part of the school community. 

'They give a much richer dimension to the concept of community policing, to which police forces have long been committed.' 

The minister's intervention follows mounting public concern over knife crime following a wave of stabbings in London and elsewhere.

Lord Adonis said the debate on the desirability of a police presence in schools had now been won. 

However their introduction has not been free of controversy. 

Children's rights groups claim many youngsters have been criminalised over incidents which were nothing more than playground spats and pranks. 

Tory schools spokesman Nick Gibb also criticised the move.

He said; 'It's a sad fact of the decline in discipline in many schools that some are now having to work closely with the police to ensure the safety of children and teachers.

'Rather than seeing police repeatedly called to schools, we want to give teachers more powers to restore order to the classroom.'