By Community Correspondent: Samuel Hopcroft Have you ever heard of being searched and scanned before you’re allowed to enter your own school? Tiffin Boy’s School, Kingston, was subject to a police search on Tuesday 10th November as every child entering the school was searched before they were forced to empty their bags to show police officers their private belongings.

The school and their local team of police both said that ‘Operation Blunt’ was well thought out as it encouraged children not to carry weapons on them at school and it raised awareness about knife crime but the truth was it was a waste of time for the pupils; being forced to line up to get in to school as you would at an airport before boarding a plane; it was a hassle for the teachers who stood by the gate for an hour in the icy temperatures of the morning and most importantly it was a waste of time for the police, who should have been patrolling Kingston’s streets and stopping muggings and gang crime instead of criticising many children and then causing many more of them to be late for school.

The police understand that knife crime should be reduced and are doing the best they can to raise awareness through this scheme but it is clear that they are targeting the wrong people as the only criticism the police could give the boys was that the boys’ scissors were to sharp or the point on their pair of compasses was too long.

A year 11 Tiffinian was disgusted with the way he was searched. The police told him, after they had searched him for drugs, guns and knives, that his scissors were too sharp and someone could use them as a weapon against him. This thought humoured him slightly with the image of a CHAV pinning him up against the wall and then going into his bag then his pencil case just to use his scissors. But even the slightly unprecedented and humorous comment from the police officer did not spare the annoyance of the circumstance, not only for him but for everyone around and when eventually he got through the gate he was frazzled and definitely not in the mood to work.

I am not saying that the police should stop tackling knife crime in Kingston but maybe they should start thinking of approaching the problem in a different manner, and so maybe, it is time to give ‘Operation Blunt’ the axe.