A 14-year-old girl is set for sentencing on April 28, following a guilty verdict for attempted murder. The incident occurred at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman in Carmarthenshire last April, leaving two teachers, Fiona Elias and Liz Hopkin, and a pupil hospitalized after being stabbed. The attack has prompted discussions on school safety and behavior policies, with significant implications for educational institutions in Wales.
Ceri Myers, the deputy head teacher at the time, resigned after the attack. He exchanged seven emails with the government, the last sent on the morning of the incident, highlighting the ongoing communication about safety concerns. During the 2023/2024 academic year, four incidents involving weapons on school premises were recorded at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman, leading to the permanent exclusion of two pupils. In one case, a knife found in a pupil's bag in September 2023 resulted in a fixed-term exclusion.
Mr. Myers, now working at an academy in London, revealed that he experienced five or six assaults in the last academic year alone. He described the first assault as a "once in a career incident" and expressed shock over the stabbing.
"You never go into a school thinking that would happen," said Mr. Myers.
"But I believe that there were warning signs for every school in Wales that something like this was going to happen," he added.
Education Secretary Lynne Neagle condemned violence against teachers or staff as "completely unacceptable," stressing that the Welsh government has been focusing strongly on addressing poor behavior in schools. This incident was also discussed on S4C's current affairs program Y Byd ar Bedwar.
Mr. Myers disclosed that attempts to permanently exclude students carrying knives were met with resistance from local authorities.
"On more than one occasion, as a school we had the conversation with the local authority to explain someone was carrying a knife and this is what we would like to do… the response from the local authority was 'no, we are not going to support you excluding that person permanently'," Mr. Myers stated.
In response to these challenges, Education Minister highlighted the importance of having "behaviour policies in place which are consistently implemented." Additionally, Neagle mentioned an upcoming behavior summit aimed at taking an action-focused approach to addressing these issues.
"We've got our behaviour summit coming up where we're going to have an action focused look at what we need to do," Neagle noted.
