Through our school buildings we are in danger of educating the next generation to be fearful of society rather than be involved in it, a survey of the school built environment suggests.
A theme of the pool by school design initiative School Works was ‘safety and security’. The safety and security of our children and young people is of paramount importance to society, poll organisers say. Our schools should be a safe haven for our children and young people, an oasis of calm where they are comfortable, free to learn and interact with one another, and free to develop the skills that will prepare them for success in adulthood. However, protecting schools from wider social problems like crime and bullying is an extremely difficult task. After all, schools are an integral part of any community, and any social problems within the community are likely to manifest themselves within the school grounds.
We passionately believe that gaining a ‘pupil perspective’ of safety and security issues within our schools is of the utmost importance. Do security fences make them feel safe or imprisoned? Does CCTV create a sense of protection or a feeling of being watched? Although various research, pilot schemes and solutions to such issues within schools are commonplace, very little is known on how this impacts on the pupils’ sense of security. For instance, the Home Offices scientific development branch recently completed a £4.5m ‘safer schools and hospitals’ pilot project. Large, impossible to climb fences were erected at several school sites, appearing to reduce the problems of out-of-hours trespass and vandalism greatly. The solution was praised for its "cost effectiveness" and the fact it was preferable to the "ongoing costs of a monitored CCTV system". Yet no mention was made of its wider impact on the culture of the schools, especially the impact on the pupils’ sense of safety and security. We are under no illusions that this is a difficult balance to strike: provision of measures designed to protect schools from vandals is clearly important. So however, is the impact of these measures on the pupil’s learning and sense of worth.
Question: is your school building safe and secure?
Some 65pc of the young people questioned said they felt safe in their school building.
How could you make your school safer?
Despite the positive and encouraging results of the first part of this question there were some surprising themes which came up when we asked young people to describe how they would make their school safer. A large number of the young people complained that their school was too safe already. Although understanding that measures such as high fences and CCTV might solve the problem of out of-hours vandalism and burglary they were worried about being under constant surveillance in a fenced complex that resembled a prison. Respondents used the prison analogy a number of times within their answers.
Young people saw CCTV as a positive way of ensuring safety and security as long as they were used to protect them and not ‘spy on’ them.
ID cards and swipe cards
Young people were generally positive about the idea of ID or swipe cards being used in their school. They were keen that the introduction of these measures did not limit the number of accessible entrances into their school as it had in a number of cases
Drugs and knives
Worries around people carrying drugs and knives in school were mentioned several times in the report. This observation was often linked to solutions on stopping bullying. Suggested solutions included; instigating searches for drugs and knives using sniffer-dogs, metal detectors and regular police searches
Bullying
Bullying was viewed as important ‘safety and security’ issue by our responding pupils. It often came from our younger pupils, who articulated that one of the most effective ways of creating a safer and more secure environment didn’t involve expensive equipment, but a concerted attempt by the school authorities to eradicate bullying. Suggestions for improving this element of safety and security included: More staff around the place, particularly at the start and end of the school day, enforcement of smoking bans, security guards, social spaces that weren’t ‘hidden’. Many young people felt that it was important to limit access by unauthorised strangers to the school. Solutions to this included locking doors and gates during school hours.
You can download the 33-page report as a Word document:
