Let's not follow USA

Read The Herald says "Better security is need at our schools" here.

Whilst I fully understand the deep shock and fright that parents of the children in the school must have experienced, the facts of the matter are that the intruders in this case were not armed, and had not selected the school as a particular target.

They were trying to hide by merging with a crowd of people, and at a different time of day, in a different place, could equally well have headed for a supermarket, a cinema or a football ground.

If these criminals had, in fact, been armed and intent on violence within the school premises, do you really believe that "extra resources and more vetting" would have prevented them from doing so?

What would you suggest these "extra resources" should be? Armed guards, watch towers, receptionists trained in mortal combat?

Or, would you like to see every parent, delivery driver, or visitor CRB checked and body searched before they enter school premises?

Do we really want to follow in the steps of the USA, where inner city schools in places like Washington DC have no windows, armed guards, reinforced steel doors, automatic lock-down and isolation facilities, and all visitors including pupils and parents are body-searched before entering the premises?

The fact is that even relatively small improvements in security systems are expensive and time-consuming.

If security measures were to be increased on a national basis, make no mistake, the money would come out of the education budget.

There would be less books, less teachers, less TAs, cuts in cleaning and maintenance, and poorer sports, art and computer facilities, all to "manage" a public perception created by the media that schools are a "vulnerable" place for children to be.

In this country, primary schools try extremely hard, and in the case of good schools like the Vale, largely succeed, to be friendly, welcoming places at the heart of the community.

Children, parents, teachers and visitors, should feel comfortable in them.

Turning them into ultra-secure prisons where children are incarcerated all day and visitors are made to feel uncomfortable is not the way forward.

Your leader column did no favours to anybody by stirring up the ghosts of Dunblane, largely ignoring the fact that there were no firearms on the premises, and that due to the courage and calmness of the staff, emergency procedures worked well and no-one was hurt.

Evil men with criminal intentions will always be easily capable of breaching the sort of security that is practical or affordable.

To imply that there is a major threat to children in our schools on the basis of one successfully-resolved incident, without considering the social or economic repercussions of your argument, was a knee-jerk reaction, and not one with which many of those people involved with making our schools pleasant places for our children to learn will have much sympathy.

Andrew Lawrenson

Langbury Lane

Ferring

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