The Barclay School

Generally Barclay school remains a safe environment and incidents involving offensive weapons are rare. However circumstances change daily and with the number of students attending the school there will incidents of students bringing weapons onto the site.

Clearly the main way to ensure weapons are not brought onto the site is by continuing to educate young people in the dangers of illegally carrying a knife or other offensive weapon.

Section 139(A) Criminal Justice Act 1988 already makes it a criminal offence to have an offensive weapon on a school premises and school staff can already search a pupil with consent as part of our authority to discipline.

Recently legislation introduced enables searches to be conducted on suspicion. This legislation under the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 and section 550(A) of the Education Act 1996 came into force on 31 May 2007. This power to search on suspicion add another option which schools can use when they suspect a knife or other offensive weapon may have been carried onto school premises or may be carried on an off site educational visit.

Schools can now also require students to undergo screening for weapons without suspicion and without consent, by a walk through or hand held metal detector (arch or wand), which is no contact or very low contact. This procedure does not include patting down. In fact the recent guidelines from the DfES recommend occasional screening of randomly selected while on the premises students. If students refuse to be screened, the school may refuse to have the student on the premises or on an offsite educational visit.

The Grounds

The statutory power to search applies where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a pupil has with him or in his possession any of the following:-

• Any article to which section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 applies “Any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed or a folding penknife if the cutting edge of its blade exceeds 3 inches”.
• An offensive weapon (within the meaning of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953) “Without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to a person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person”.
• A weapon made for causing injury, such as a gun.
• An article adapted for causing injury, such as a broken bottle deliberately for the purpose.
• An article not made or adapted for causing injury but which the person who has it intends to be used for the purpose of causing injury, e.g. a baseball bat.

The power includes a power to search where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a student is in innocent possession of a weapon.

Human Rights

The exercising of these powers is unlikely to engage any of the convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998. If any such rights are engaged, any interference is capable of being justified for the purpose of keeping students and staff safe at school.

Staff

A Head teacher must authorise in writing staff permitted to conduct searches under this power. A Head teacher cannot require anyone other than a member of support staff or security staff to carry out a search where they have reasonable grounds for suspecting that a student has a knife or offensive weapon with him in his possessions. These staff do not have to be licensed with the Security Industry Association.

Mrs Beacom has authorised in writing all members of the Student Support Team to enforce this power if necessary.

The Search

If authorised staff suspect a weapon is somewhere in a school or on an offsite educational visit, they can search any of their students if they have reasonable grounds for suspecting that he has the weapon with him or in his possessions. This is a legal standard and not a subjective one. The searcher must assess what constitutes, in each particular case, reasonable grounds for suspicion that a student may have a weapon with him or in his possessions. The following should be considered as factors relevant to the reasonable suspicion being formed:-

• No contact or low contact screening with a wand or arch may establish further suspicion.
• Suspicion should be based on facts relevant to the likelihood of finding a weapon Reasonable suspicion will rarely be supported on the basis of personal factors alone, without reliable supporting intelligence or information about some specific behaviour by the student to be searched. For example, a student’s race, age, appearance, or any isolated instance of misbehaviour in the distant past must not be used alone or in combination with each other as the reason for suspecting that student. Reasonable suspicion cannot be based on generalisations or stereotypical images of certain groups or categories of students as more likely to be in possession of a weapon.

• Reasonable suspicion may sometimes exist without specific information or intelligence, and on the basis of some level of generalisation stemming from the behaviour of the student.
• Reasonable suspicion should normally be linked to accurate and current intelligence or information.
• Searches are more likely to be effective and legitimate and to secure public confidence when reasonable suspicion is based on a range of factors.
• Where there is reliable information that members of a particular local group habitually carry knives or other offensive weapons unlawfully, this may provide reasonable grounds to search the student.
• Before carrying out a search a member of school staff may ask students questions about the students behaviour or presence in circumstances, which gave rise to the suspicion.

The power to search on suspicion and without consent enables a personal search, involving removal of outer clothing and searching pockets. But not an intimate search going further than that, which only a person with more extensive powers (e.g. Police Officer) can do.

The searcher can pat down a person’s clothing, without directly touching the body.

The searcher can require the student to remove outer clothing (e.g. a coat jacket or pullover if it is necessary for the search. If the student refuses, the searcher can use reasonable force to remove outer clothing.

Staff must not require a searched student to remove, and must not themselves remove, clothes beneath outerwear e.g. trousers, skirt, sari, shirt, blouse, socks, tights. Nor should staff seek the voluntary removal of such items.

Reasonable steps must always be taken to preserve the dignity and privacy of any searched students

Two members of staff must always be present at a without consent search of a student. These members of staff should always be of the same sex as the student being searched. The member of staff conducting the search must be an authorised member of staff to carry out the search. The second member of staff present must be a member of school staff, defined as any teacher who works at the school or anyone who, by the authority of the Head teacher, has lawful control or charge of pupils' welfare.

Consequences

If no weapon is discovered by a search, the school can decide to take no further action, but should still:-

• Record the outcomes.
  Inform the student’s parents
  Inform the school’s governing body annually on how many searches or screenings took place under the school’s policy, and the results.
• If a suspected illegal weapon is seized it must be delivered to the police as soon as reasonably practicable. It is lawful for staff to keep a seized weapon until delivering it to the police.

All weapons seized must be stored in a locked cupboard.

• A full written or electronic record must be kept of all screenings or without consent searches carried out by staff. The records must include the following:-

1. Name, year, sex, ethnicity of every student searched.
2. Grounds of suspicion.
3. Time and place.
4. Who searched?
5. Who else present at search.
6. What if any reasonable force was used, and reason for force.
7. How the search began and progressed.
8. The student’s responses and how staff managed them.
9. Outcomes and follow up action.
10. Details of weapons found.

• Schools are not required by law to inform parents before a search or seek parental consent, but a parent might feel concerned about their child being searched. As well as publicising the school’s policy in advance. A dedicated letter should be sent to each parent when a student has been searched, and offer an opportunity to discuss the matter.

Additional Information

A full copy of these powers can be found on the government Dfes Website at www.dfes.gov.uk