Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing mandatory requirements for schools to take effective safeguarding measures against knife crime.

There are no circumstances in which it is acceptable to take weapons into school. Doing so is likely to be a criminal offence and may have serious consequences.

The Department for Education issues statutory guidance to schools, Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE, September 2016), to which all schools must have regard when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. KCSIE is clear that all school staff have a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which children can learn. Schools have a statutory power to search for, and confiscate, prohibited items such as knives and weapons.

The Department for Education has produced advice for schools, Searching, screening and confiscation: advice for schools (updated September 2016,) which makes it clear that school staff can search pupils and their possessions without consent where there are reasonable grounds to do so. If a pupil refuses to be searched, the school may bar them from the premises.

The Government has taken steps to tackle behaviour and discipline in schools. Teachers’ powers to search pupils have been strengthened by adding to the list of prohibited items and allowing schools to search for any items banned by the school’s rules. As well as a more general power to search for items that have been, or could be, used to cause harm or break the law, teachers can also search for prohibited items.

Keeping children safe in education is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2.

Searching, screening and confiscation: advice for schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/searching-screening-and-confiscation.