POLICING THE PLAYGROUND: A New Model For Schools Policing

As well as learning, seeing their friends and running around the playground, for some children, being at school also means having a uniformed police officer patrolling the hallways, holding lessons, eating lunch with them, or telling them off.

Since 2002, some schools have agreed to a ‘Safer Schools Partnership’ where a police officer begins working with that school – sometimes as closely as having their own office within the school.

There is no reliable evidence that having police in schools makes schools safer. However, there is evidence of disproportionality and harm to young people – especially those in over-policed communities.

In May 2025, the Met Police moved all Safer Schools Officers in London into Neighbourhood Policing Teams where they no longer have a regular presence within schools.

Police and local authority officials in Hackney piloted a new way to operationalise the change to schools policing. We analysed this pilot model and the London-wide change via Freedom of Information requests, speaking with professionals in safeguarding, education, policing, and violence reduction, and carrying out interviews with six youth practitioners in Hackney.

What did the report find? 

• A lack of funding for mental health provision and youth work means that police step into roles that are unrelated to policing, and other professionals like teachers sometimes do ‘police’ work.
• Some activities that still bring police into schools are evidenced as harmful or ineffective, like when police deliver Personal, Social, Health, and Economics (PSHE) lessons which concern topics like drugs or sexting.
• Police activities in schools could be more effective if police take a supportive rather than leading role, such as if they feed into PSHE lesson design but don’t deliver it themselves.

Recommendations

The report details a number of policy recommendations, including:

• police should not come into contact with young people unnecessarily
• police should be removed from non-policing roles in schools (such as teaching lessons)
• police forces should work in partnership with non-statutory youth organisations
• schools policing must take an evidence-based approach that prioritises the wellbeing of all young people.