Laura Trott, the Shadow Education Secretary, has proposed a zero tolerance approach to violence in schools.

This would involve a presumption that pupils who bring a knife to school should be permanently excluded.

Giving her Conservative Party conference speech, Trott said that she would ensure any child who carries a knife is expelled from mainstream education.

She asserted that setting clear boundaries and excluding pupils when they have been extremely violent or are carrying a knife can’t be shied away from. “This is not about giving up on those children, it is actually the opposite,” Trott stated, adding that children must learn that actions have consequences.

“So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out.

“If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you.If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there. And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.”
Laura Trott

Speaking to a news agency before her speech, the Shadow Education Secretary highlighted areas including London, Manchester and Scotland where policies are in place to prevent children being permanently excluded for carrying knives.

She singled out London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s “inclusion charter” to discourage schools from excluding children, including those who bring knives into classrooms.

Following a meeting with children who had been mentored to help keep them away from knife crime, she said that they had told her that the “normal thing was to carry a knife to be safe.” “And that just breaks my heart, and we need to break that cycle,” Trott added.

“And part of breaking that cycle is about being really, really strict about knives in schools and just to have very clear boundaries, because [London Mayor] Sadiq Khan thinks it’s compassionate to try and keep a child in school with a knife, but when you talk to head teachers, what they will always say to you is, if one knife comes into school one day, there’ll be five the next.

“So actually, what is compassionate is setting very strict boundaries, because that is how the world works.”
Laura Trott

Under her plans to restore discipline in school, she called for a presumption against readmitting to school a pupil who carried a knife, assaulted a teacher or sexually abused someone.

Trott Says Tackling Knife Crime To Aid Teacher Retention

She added that tackling knives would help with the issue of teacher retention because many leave their posts due to the bad behaviour of pupils.

A recent survey by a teaching union found that two in five teachers had been physically assaulted by pupils in the last year, including attacks with weapons.

“We need to make sure that pupils and teachers feel safe when they go to school, and that’s been one of the driving forces behind the changes that I’m proposing.”
Laura Trott

While any child caught with a knife would be excluded from mainstream education, Trott stressed that she would ensure that she would improve the “alternative provision” for those pupils.

“[We will make] sure that where that child is excluded, they have somewhere to go, which is really high quality, which is their version of intensive care, which will really help them and give them the support that they need.”
Laura Trott

She also warned of the dangers of social media after hearing from the children that they regularly saw posts which “normalise” carrying knives.