Schools rehearsing lockdowns over fears knife crime coming in from the streets

14 comments

1. Headteachers are carrying out weapons searches, rehearsing lockdowns and considering using knife arches due to an alarming increase in incidents in schools, *The i Paper* has been told.

   A 15-year-old boy, [Harvey Willgoose](https://inews.co.uk/news/crime/boy-dies-sheffield-school-stabbing-teen-detained-3516692?ico=in-line_link), was stabbed to death at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield on Monday 3 February in a tragedy which has sent shockwaves through the education sector.

   While leaders have been aware of an upward trend in knife crime among school children for years, there is now a growing concern that it is spreading beyond the streets and into school buildings.

   “It’s definitely getting worse,” a police source told *The i Paper*. “There are so many stabbings you don’t hear about because no one dies.

   “It makes sense kids will have them in school as they think the journey to and from school could be dangerous.”

   Pepe Di’lasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), told *The i Paper* incidents of pupils carrying knives into the school building is “definitely on the increase” and “that’s not inner-city areas, it’s everywhere”. He added schools are now practising lockdown procedures amid the rise in incidents.

   “A lot of colleagues are telling me it is tricky – they are trying to reassure their community, they will have practised and rehearsed a lockdown situation in the last week, but what we’re hearing is that parents are getting worried about rehearsals.

   “That sends a message that the school is worried but all schools want to make sure they are as safe as can be.”

   Oliver Coppard, the Labour Mayor for South Yorkshire, has met with the parents of Harvey Willgoose who want to see more knife arches installed in schools.

   He told *The i Paper* he understands that parents and familes are “worried” after the murder in Sheffield but that he doesn’t want to see schools become “fortresses”.

   Coppard said he will “follow the evidence about what works” and suggested that running campaigns, having conversations with young people, more funding for youth groups and “potentially” more security in schools.

   # Knives in schools

2. Why? What has changed in our society that kids have to searched entering a school? This isn’t the US, so why are we becoming more so?

3. Literally doing anything but actually fixing the problem…

4. As some prominent instagram account says. We dont have to live like this.

   https://imgur.com/a/G5qEAk5

5. Correct me if I’m reading this wrong but it looks like it’s only one school doing this?

   One head teacher panicking is not indicative of a larger problem

6. Quick quick, better vote to deregulate the banks, that’ll help.

7. My wife works at a school with a good reputation and twice recently pupils have been found with knives. It can happen anywhere, it’s like there’s been a shift in our society or something but a knife attack in a school is a real threat we can’t ignore.

8. It’s fucking nonsense. Google “Stabbing deaths by country” and look at the data.

   The UK is in the BOTTOM 10. There are only 4 countries with less knife deaths than us.

   America has nearly ten times more and we’re behind every other country in Europe.

9. My 10 year old had lockdown drills recently.

   What a horrible email to read. What a world eh‽

   </3

10. Tbf importing American culture wholesale doesn’t help. I remember when teenagers didn’t all pretend to be gangsters because we’d have got the shit kicked out of us. Now getting a welll deserved slap is ‘disrespect’ so you may just get stabbed for it. And no ,teenagers stabbing each other over postcodes and drug lines dgaf about religion

11. Better to have lockdown drills because a student might have a knife than because a student has a gun.

    Might even be better still to teach the kids self defence as a regular part of PE.

12. My kid is 12. Her school had a lockdown drill just before half term.

    Apparently, it was a complete shambles with a significant proportion of staff not up to speed on the process.

    I guess that’s what drills are for I suppose.

    I found it utterly tragic that kids in the UK are having to do this stuff. I subsequently found out later on that staff in her school have found a number of kids with knives/blades implements in school since this year started in September 2024. Police have been involved multiple times and students have been excluded.

    The school has kept this information on the low down. I’d have preferred to have been better informed as it would influence my decision to send my daughter to school. I know it can happen anywhere but keeping the details ‘quiet’ is awful.

    Let the drills continue, I guess.

13. Lockdowns have been rehearsed in UK schools for like 8 years now

14. That have been doing this for a long time. Terrorism was the main reason they were brought in.

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