Like most, when I heard last week about the east London teenager who was strip-searched by police at her school, I was horrified. The terrible details of this state-sanctioned abuse of a young girl are horrific enough, but when I learned that it was her teachers who had called the police – who stood outside the room while police officers searched the private parts of a child – I was speechless.
As a teacher, the thought that this could happen somewhere children should be safe is unthinkable. But the truth is, it is time we were honest about the increasing encroachment of policing in our schools. This incident did not occur in a vacuum. Teachers, once seen as educators and caregivers, are under pressure to become plain-clothes police officers teaching algebra.
