Frank Chalk has put a post on his blog about this news, which brings up the issue of just how long it would take to search everybody who tries to enter the school.

The types of school that they are planning to put these contraptions into are those that probably have the most challenging pupils, low attendance and low achievement. It won't take much to give some of these kids another excuse not to go to school. If the search is a condition of entry into the school (and I can't see it being anything else, as there is no power to randomly search any more) then these pupils are quite literally going to turn round and walk away. Will that mean they are carrying knives or just that they've found a good excuse to bunk off.

It's an ill-conceived publicity piece which I hope will never see the light of day.

Edited by intheblitz - 21 January 2008 at 8:46am

The latest plan from the funny farm!

The Home Secretary, in an attempt to divert attention away from all the other stupid decisions she has made, has publicised plans to install metal detectors in hundreds of schools to combat knife crime.

So Mrs Smith, how will this be managed?

Will there be several hundred police officers on duty every morning at schools, staffing the detectors, to seize any weapons found and to deal with the carriers? I don't think so.

Will private security guards, with no powers of search, be used? Possibly - more money that will have to be found out of school budgets?

How about using the teachers, who do have delegated powers to search? Hang on - isn't their job to teach kids, not to frisk them before they get into lessons?

What a complete and utter waste of time and money this will be. It is a complete non-starter. Kids have been smuggling fags, booze and porn into school for years and will find a way to get knives past the detector. In fact, they don't need to, as there will be plenty of knives and other sharp objects in the Design department, so why bother bringing their own?

Somebody somewhere will make a fortune out of supplying these detectors and somebody else will get shafted with the responsibility of staffing the doors. It's a recipe for disaster!