Gangs make kids take knives to school – to push them into crime

GANGS are forcing children to carry knives into school ‘for the sole purpose’ of getting them expelled, Ofsted has warned.

Many schools have a zero-tolerance policy on weapons, meaning anyone caught with a blade is automatically excluded.

The watchdog said once this happens, youngsters with no daily routine are ‘groomed’ for a life of crime.

Gangs often want children to transport weapons or work as drug runners as they raise less suspicion than adults.

Ofsted urged schools to consider why children had knives before kicking them out – and highlighted the possibility of pupils being ‘coached by dangerous adults to get themselves excluded’.

It also pointed out that some children with mental health issues might bring in knives to self-harm, and should be given special consideration.

The comments came in a study published by Ofsted yesterday focusing on London, which is rife with knife crime. It noted that children can be both a ‘perpetrator’ and a ‘victim’.

‘Parents told us that their children had been encouraged by adult gang members to carry weapons into school for the sole purpose of triggering an exclusion,’ the researchers found.

‘Once excluded, children may have fewer protective factors, including access to trusted adults such as their teachers, depending on what happens to them as a result.

‘If they are not admitted into another mainstream school or good-quality alternative provision ... this can make them more vulnerable to potential criminality.’

The wide-ranging report said that searching pupils and scanning them with metal detectors could be a ‘successful deterrent’ – if carried out sensitively.

However, many schools are refusing to do so because they fear it will send out the ‘wrong message’ to parents that their children are ‘less safe’.

‘This was particularly a concern for colleges, which felt that it would make them look less safe than competing schools in their area,’ the report said.

In addition, some schools are failing to properly educate pupils about knife crime because they fear being seen as a ‘problem school’, which in turn leads to them being ‘avoided by parents’.

The report also suggested heads are less likely to exclude knife-carrying children if they have high grades which can help performance in league tables. Ofsted warned that a child’s academic record should be irrelevant.

The report comes amid a row over whether exclusions are fuelling knife crime, with some politicians claiming they cause problems by effectively putting children on the streets.

Ofsted’s chief inspector Amanda Spielman said there was no ‘causal link’ and that both problems were likely to be ‘symptoms’ of wider societal problems. However, she added that exclusions ‘do not always sufficiently take into account the best interests of the child, which have to be balanced against the wider needs of the school community’. She warned that schools cannot fight the problem of knives alone, and must be helped by the police and councils.

Ofsted’s initial research was based on responses from 107 schools in London.

Permanent exclusions, formerly known as expulsion, have risen sharply across England to 7,700 in 2016/17, up from 4,630 four years earlier. The report also noted a shortage of ‘pupil referral units’ and other alternative places for excluded children.

‘Sending the wrong message’