Ed Balls: Police permanently in schools

[Mark Gobell]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20071210/tuk-police-in-schools-under -new-plan-6323e80_1.html

[John White]

[conspiracy analyst]

[Mark Gobell]

The incredibly talented Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families and husband of Yvette Cooper, Minister of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whom between them can't even decide which of their two homes their family actually lives in and which of their two homes our taxes are best used to subsidise. . . .

will make his announcements today on what is best for us all . . .

[TonyGosling]

Ed Balls - FULL ON BILDERBERGER

[Caz]

The Times states that the report saying that schools will have to make room for social workers and police is from New Philanthropy Capital, established by ex Goldman Sachs employees.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article30314 06.ece

[kbo234]

[Caz]

The 21st Century children
A friend was chatting to me recently. She was telling me about a new scheme of work which has been produced. She is trialing this with her students. (This person is a head of department and a very good and experienced teacher.)
She was with a class of students after lunch, and was pleased with how the lesson had progressed. They had a set of work to do from a card. They were focused on the work, they worked through the lesson. However, at the end of the lesson she saw that there was little work in their books. As she commented to me ‘If an inspector had come in he would have wondered what we had done all lesson.’ They were working independently from cards for the whole lesson. But she still felt it was a successful lesson. They had completed possibily 8 maths questions on algebra. One question she remarked on ... something like ‘2B-A; what happens if you add another A to this equation?’ This indeed is tricky as there is no A to add another A to. There is one A less. If you add anther A to –A, the result is zero, but it may take a student a while to figure this out.
She commented that this was a 21st Century course for 21st Century children. But the behaviour of 21st Century children in schools is outrageous. When she mentioned that this was after all a lesson after lunch, basically she meant they were full of sugar and additives having just eaten lunch (this could mean two cans of coke, or the pizza and chips diet Jamie Oliver tried so hard to reverse) and were hyperactive with poor concentration. And hence, when they settled to work and were focused on the card and were doing the lesson she felt this was an achievement. (Even though they didn’t, it seems, actually do much.)
Interesting asides through this conversation were

[Caz]

Correction:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article30314 06.ece

[Mark Gobell]

Knife scanners at school gates to curb attacks

· Detectors for 'tough' secondaries welcomed
· Move follows rash of stabbings

Mark Townsend and Jo Revill
Sunday January 20, 2008
The Observer

Airport-style metal detectors will be installed at hundreds of school gates under sweeping measures to confront the growing problem of teenage knife crime.

Their introduction at the toughest secondary schools, which will be announced next month by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, forms a core element of the government's new violent crime action plan. Senior police officers and head teachers have persuaded Smith that their effectiveness in tackling knife crime outweighs any concerns over pupil privacy. Last week a girl of 13 was stabbed in the chest and thigh shortly after finishing lessons at a London school, the latest in a spate of stabbings. Although the Home Office has examined giving police increased search powers to seize knives, metal detectors are preferable as 'less obtrusive'. Teaching unions have welcomed them because of the dangers caused by manually frisking pupils.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, which has more than 11,000 members, said: 'There are schools serving areas where knife crime is high in the community and it's right that these schools take measures to protect pupils, but this is a very small number.'

Search arches similar to those at airports will have an alarm activated when pupils with suspicious metal objects pass through. Children will not be forced to empty pockets before going through, reducing fears that the controls will compromise their privacy. All pupils will have to face checks to avoid accusations that stereotypes are being targeted. Schools in London, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, the worst affected cities, are among the metropolitan areas where they will be encouraged.

While the Home Office will actively promote checks in problem schools, Dunford said: 'It's up to the head teacher to decide what is required to protect the pupils and sometimes that might involve the use of metal detectors.' Smith hopes the measures will help to prevent gang culture in playgrounds while dissuading younger children from becoming familiar with carrying a knife for protection.

Walk-through detectors designed to spot guns, knives and other flat and rod-shaped weapons cost almost £5,000 each. Home Office sources said funding issues were still being discussed, adding that the department had put £1.75m into 400 local groups combating knife crime. Larger schools are likely to order a number of detectors. The Association of Chief Police Officers supports their wider use following evidence that they double as a deterrent. For more than 18 months British Transport Police has used such detectors at rail and underground stations. Of 60,000 travellers who have been searched after passing through them, 318 were arrested with 285 weapons seized. The move to extend their use follows a successful trial by Thames Valley Police.

The initiative will also promote increased use of detectors at entrances to shopping malls and, in a portable form, doorways to certain nightclubs and pubs. Hand-held scanners to check passers-by have already been used by police.

The decision on detectors follows research by the Damilola Taylor Trust showing that 80 per cent of knife crime is committed by 12- to 20-year-olds. A number of high-profile stabbings have occurred at or outside schools. Last week a court heard how a 16-year-old stabbed a 17-year-old three times outside a school in Regents Park, north London, over a 'text sex' love triangle row. Other recent cases involve teenage stabbing at a north Devon school. In 2003, Luke Walmsley, 14, was stabbed to death by a 16-year-old pupil in the corridor of his school in North Somercotes, Lincolnshire.

Promising footballer Kiyan Prince, 15, was fatally stabbed outside a west London school just over 18 months ago. His head teacher said that ministers were more interested in getting pupils to eat healthily than tackling knife crime. There is also growing government concern over the lawlessness of some youths and the impact of the recent spate of attacks on local residents.

This was highlighted last week with the conviction of three youths for the murder of Garry Newlove, kicked to death by three teenagers outside his home in Warrington after they had been on a seven-hour drinking binge.

Some ministers are keen to see more direct intervention being used with families that have a history of violence for whom traditional measures have failed. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said they should look at the success of family intervention projects, where the most unruly families are given intensive help from social workers.

Blears, Labour MP for Salford, said: 'Sometimes we have shied away from this agenda on intervention, thinking that it is too stigmatising. But unless we have this, you are washing your hands of the next generation who will repeat the same mistakes.

'It is like watching a slow train crash, you know it's going to happen and can't prevent it unless you take these decisions. There are a minority of people whose behaviour is out of control. It doesn't mean we are a broken society, but this minority is something we can't shy away from.'

Guardian