Stabbing at Kingsdale School

[Bic Basher]

A 15 year old boy has been charged with attempted murder. Goes to court in the morning.

http://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2015-11-20/boy-accused-of-attempted-murder-over-school-stabbing/

[ratty]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> I think ratty's post is a classic case of "moves

> out of London and tries to convince everyone how

> much better it is".

>

> tiddles - I don't think you sound naive at all. We

> all realise that big cities have social problems,

> it's a factor that all of us with kids have

> already weighed up. Exaggeration is not

Hope it didn't come across like that. What I do for a living probably skews my perception but I do not come across many areas and schools nowadays that aren't affected by serious youth violence, and having moved to Bromley it sells more safe for my kids.

However, I sit in serious youth violence panels so maybe I see issues where there aren't any. It sort of freaks me out and makes me worry.

Sometimes I feel like loving even further away tbh!

[Angelina]

Sorry, but how many kids stabbed this year in London? and it's not a problem?

One is too many. I'm shocked at the apathy.

No, its not common in school - thank heavens.

But it beggars the basic question of what is going on that we don't know about? I very much doubt that this is the only kid who has a weapon on them at school.

My primary school - yes - a year 6 primary school kid - in Herne Hill - was caught with a knife and threatening another child.

It is not common, but it is not unheard of. And denying the existence of something you don't like isn't going to make it go away.

[Monkey]

It's more common than I thought among young children. A year 6 came in with a knife at a Lewisham school where a friend worked. A charity I did a brief stint at took kids on a day trip to Westminster and a 10-year-old had felt the need to bring in a knife because he was leaving his borough. I'm not saying knives are everywhere but I'm starting to think they're more present than I initially thought among young children.

[rabbitears]

"Sorry, but how many kids stabbed this year in London? and it's not a problem?

One is too many. I'm shocked at the apathy. "

I don't think there's apathy, just a bit of dissent against the "zomg kids are tooling up and stabbing each other like never before" proposition. (And to be fair I don't think anyone is really saying that. One of the problems on this thread is that people are speaking past each other: one group thinks the other is saying the sky is falling, while the other group thinks the first is suggesting that a few stabbed kids is just normal schoolboy high jinks).

Fwiw I went to a snooty school ages ago and a bunch of us went through a phase of carrying knives. (As an aside, you can tell how snooty it was because the fashionable knife to have was an Opinel - that's right, a premium French brand that you bought on your annual holiday to France...). At another school I went to one kid stabbed another.

[uncleglen]

Blah Blah- She is 'right' to say what she said because she is doing what the opposition has to do-i.e. criticise everything the present government does- but it does nothing to reassure parents and the community.

As far as the knives from France thing goes I remember years ago my brother went on a school trip to France and the whole group came back with flick knives- they were 13 years old...fortunately one of the class were being cocky with his and the teacher searched all of them and confiscated them all

[Otta]

Angelina Wrote:

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> It is not common, but it is not unheard of. And

> denying the existence of something you don't like

> isn't going to make it go away.

Who has denied the existance of anything? Of course it is real and one is too many. All some people (me included) have said is that it's not a sudden new problem.

[steveo]

When I was a scout I'd walk around the town with with a sheath knife on my belt. My mate had an axe.

I don't suppose that would pass unnoticed these days

[Blah Blah]

I agree with that Uncleglen, but at the same time, we have to be honest about what cuts really mean to front line services. The two are connected. Many of the facilities in place to deal with disruptive youths have been cut back. Youth groups have closed. The only reassurance that parents could be given is that children that are excluded are given the right involvement so they don't go and do what this teenager did. Helen Hayes MP wasn't just being a typical MP in opposition, she was making valid points about the consequences of this government'a drive to clear the deficit at any cost. It may not have been the right place to do that, but ya know, that's what politicians do.

Teenage boys have aways carried knives. What has changed is the culture. It used to be to strip bark of a twig, now it's for 'protection'. 183 teenage murders in London between 2005-2015.

http://www.citizensreportuk.org/reports/teenage-murder-london.html

[HannahSE23]

I am very saddened to hear what happened at Kingdsdale. It must be a worrying time for all involved with the school. But just to put it in context a friend was at Alleyns in the 90s and a boy was expelled for bringing a gun in to school. Also in Somerset last week a kid was arrested for plotting a 'massacre' at his school in Taunton. Two examples that show (very sadly) how things like this are neither confined to state schools nor just to big cities. It's not a recent problem either. I hope the pupils involved and the wider school community can all recover from this dreadful incident.

[uncleglen]

So money has been squirreled away in anticipation of having to spend more on intelligence services and specialist troops...

[Blah Blah]

I think it highlights why a fixed plan with no flexibility for unforseen events doesn't work Uncle. We will see where the money comes from for those services and Troops on Wednesday. The Police are worried. And if we go to war, where does the money come from for that? there are no oil fields to raid this time.

Governments can always borrow for bailing out banks and war, but not for investment it seems.

[rabbitears]

> Teenage boys have aways carried knives. What has

> changed is the culture. It used to be to strip

> bark of a twig, now it's for 'protection'.

I agree with most of what you said but as a former teenage boy, we weren't buggering around with knives to whittle wood. I don't agree that it's a new phenomenon: "razor gangs" were a moral panic in London almost 100 years ago!

[yard]

Doesn't surprise me at all, I live in the area and find a lot of the students very unruly and rude.

[keane]

What a ridiculous generalisation yard, conversely I live in the area too & find the vast majority of students polite & well behaved. I'm sure there is a mix of behaviours at most secondary schools state or private.

[Alexthecamel]

What nonsense yard.

The extraordinary thing about Dulwich, with its 5 secondary schools, is that it's very hard to tell which school a child goes to except from the uniform.

Any student from any of the schools could be walking quietly/ 'more animatedly'/ cycling/ on the phone/ eating/ carrying an instrument/ carrying sports equipment.

Students locally are much better behaved than at my leafy secondary 30 years ago.

[Penguin68]

I don't agree that it's a new phenomenon: "razor gangs" were a moral panic in London almost 100 years ago!

The razor gangs of the 50s and early 60s were mainly made up of (admittedly young) working men - remember the school leaving age then was 15, going later up to 16 only in 1972. Their strife took place outside schools. Knife violence inside schools in the UK is very much a modern phenomenon (although, as I have said above, many school children then did carry knives). I recall I lovely Giles cartoon showing two groups of Teds, one with razors, the other swinging electric shavers on their leads with the comment, by a policemen watching and doing nothing - 'Now we'll see which shaves closer...' or words to that effect.

[Ridgley]

Penguin68 wrote

I don't agree that it's a new phenomenon: "razor gangs" were a moral panic in London almost 100 years ago!

The razor gangs of the 50s and early 60s were mainly made up of (admittedly young) working men - remember the school leaving age then was 15, going later up to 16 only in 1972. Their strife took place outside schools. Knife violence inside schools in the UK is very much a modern phenomenon (although, as I have said above, many school children then did carry knives). I recall I lovely Giles cartoon showing two groups of Teds, one with razors, the other swinging electric shavers on their leads with the comment, by a policemen watching and doing nothing - 'Now we'll see which shaves closer...' or words to that effect.

But how many in that area where dying on a weekly or monthly basics as it is now?

[Penguin68]

I am not sure, Ridgely, what your point is here - I was saying that blade violence (which another had referred to regarding the old razor gangs) was not then an in-school phenomenon. The use of knives in schools seems to be a new thing (violence in school being of the fist, boot and knee variety in my school days). There were certainly regular (probably weekly) incidents - as there were in the 70s and 80s on the terraces and around clubs when some of the fan 'firms' were rampant - Stanley knives were quite favoured than, rather than straight edge razors - but thugs went in more for cutting than stabbing in those days, and fatalities were fewer.

So, my point is that I agreed blade based violence among the young is not new, but that it wasn't formerly a playground activity.

[Mrs TP]

It is impossible to entirely eradicate this behaviour and we could argue all night as to whether or not teenage knife crime is worse or less frequent than however many years ago or more or less prevalent in particular geographical areas but what sticks out for me in this whole situation is a major safeguarding failure of the school. One pupil involved was excluded from the school and should not have been on the premises. Ok so it could have happened outside the school but it didn't it happened inside the school grounds and the school needs to take a review and think how it could have prevented this incident from occurring within its jurisdiction.

[Otta]

It happened at the end of the school day. It is VERY aesy to walk in to most schools at that time, especially if you are a teenager.

[Mrs TP]

And it shouldn't be, perhaps all the schools need a rethink.

If he had been waiting outside, perhaps the victims' mates may have seen him and alerted them - yes I know 'perhaps', 'what if' etc but lessons need to be learnt, by society as a whole.

[uncleglen]

The Harris school in Forest Hill Road has staff standing at the entrance at the end of the day, and some schools even have staff escorting the kids onto the buses at the end of the day. However, if a wayward one gets it into his/her head they will find a way

[bornagain]

Agree with Mrs TP that this has been a total failure of safe-guarding. Also I don't think it happened at the end of the school day - it was in the afternoon break. I hope that all local secondary schools will review their safe-guarding methods. Whether it took place during the school day or not, as long as it took place on school premises it is within their juridiction and so their responsibility.

Otta Wrote:

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> It happened at the end of the school day. It is

> VERY aesy to walk in to most schools at that time,

> especially if you are a teenager.

[keane]

It did happen at the end of the day not in afternoon break. Unless we know all the facts - which aren't currently known in their entirety it is very easy to make snap judgements about the school failing. How easy would it be to spot a child wearing the school Uniform from entering the school at the end of the day when there are pupils everwhere for example? Is any school totally safe I would argue that most of them aren't. A boy was found with a knife recently at another local secondary, it could have easily happened at another school too.