The man charged with investigating the stabbing of 16-year-old Bailey Gwynne has issued a stark warning to schools: however middle-class your area, such an incident could happen among your pupils too.
Andrew Lowe, whose report into the tragic incident in a school canteen was published last week, told TESS: “This tragedy has revealed these incidents don’t only happen in inner cities and troubled neighbourhoods.
“My message would be this: it is you in the schools who think this has nothing to do with you, that need to listen.”
Mr Lowe said that the 21 recommendations in his report - including the need to make it easier for pupils to report information about pupils with weapons to staff - were relevant to all schools.
Bailey’s school, Cults Academy in Aberdeen, might at one time have considered itself immune from such an incident - its pupils achieve some of the best grades in Scotland and in 2008, it was Sunday Times state school of the year. But then the unthinkable happened, said Mr Lowe.
He said in his report that the stabbing was “handled well by all agencies” and could not have been predicted or avoided on the day. Bailey was stabbed at school by a fellow pupil on 28 October 2015 following “an unplanned, spontaneous conflict” that emerged rapidly out of “unexceptional banter”, said the report.
His killer, who is aged 16 and cannot be named for legal reasons, was jailed for nine years in March after being found guilty of culpable homicide at the High Court in Aberdeen.
Andy Smith, president of School Leaders Scotland and headteacher of Carluke High in South Lanarkshire, said no headteacher would be complacent in the wake of the tragedy. Heads across the country would be looking at their practices to see if there was anything that they could do to “tighten things up”.
He added: “The number one principle is always make sure young people feel safe and protected, and a headteacher will do anything they can do to ensure that happens.”
This is an edited version of an article in the 21 October edition of TESS. Subscribers can read the full story here. To subscribe, click here. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here. TESS magazine is available at all good newsagents.
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