THE Education Minister has moved to reassure families that systems are in place “to keep children and staff safe” after an incident involving a knife at Haute Vallée School on Monday.
The police were called to the school on Monday afternoon during which a 14-year-boy was restrained by members of staff and subsequently arrested. One student sustained a “very minor” injury to the hand.
In a statement issued yesterday, Education Minister Rob Ward said that Jersey schools “follow comprehensive safeguarding, security and emergency-response procedures.”
He said: “All government-funded schools have robust site-security measures in place.
“Those typically include controlled entry points, secure perimeter fencing, visitor-sign-in systems, CCTV coverage, and routine monitoring of school grounds.”
The minister added that Haute Vallée’s safeguarding ethos facilitated the effective management of what he described as a “serious incident”.
He added: “We remain committed to continually reviewing and enhancing our security and safeguarding arrangements.
“We understand that parents may feel anxious when incidents occur, and we want to reassure families that the systems in place across Jersey’s schools are designed to keep children and staff safe.”
Recent figures concerning school safety released following a Freedom of Information Act request in January revealed 12 confirmed student exclusions at Haute Vallée school over the last five years for the use, or threat of use, of an offensive weapon or prohibited item.
This figure can be seen against a broader statistical picture of rising violence in schools across Jersey.
A total of 640 pupils were confirmed to have been excluded from secondary school over the same time period for making a physical threat against a pupil since 2020, while 117 were excluded for making physical threats against a teacher.
Deputy Ward previously stressed that the figures should be “understood” in the context of their five-year span.
But Adrian Moss, speaking on behalf of the National Education Union, said the statistics “show there has been an increase in violence in pupil-on-pupil and pupil-on-staff assaults”.
He said that he wanted to understand what the Education Department “planning to do” in order to reduce incidents of student aggression.
“In terms of physical threat, verbal threat, there’s been a significant increase,” he said. “What is leading the change in that? And what is [the Education Department] going to do about?”
Mr Moss referred to the Jersey School and Colleges Survey 2025 as evidence for the tangible uptick in violence across Jersey secondary schools.
The survey, which polled both teachers and school staff, revealed that 28.3% of secondary teachers in Jersey experienced a physical attack by a pupil in 2025, a rise from 16.4% in 2021.
And, 41.8% of secondary school teachers reported receiving threat of physical harm from students, up from 25.8% in 2021.
