TEENAGERS TO FACE RANDOM DRUG TESTING AT ALL SCHOOLS

RANDOM drug-testing is set to be rolled out to all secondary schools
in England as part of a crackdown on drug use among pupils.

From September, schoolchildren in Kent will be tested with mouth swabs
for drugs, including cannabis, cocaine and heroin.

The move follows a pilot scheme at The Abbey School in Faversham that
was said to have transformed the behaviour of pupils, as well as their
results.

Peter Walker, the school's former head teacher, said: "We had our best
set of exam results in the school's history. There was less disruption
in the classroom, less incidents in the playground or on the way to
school."

Mr Walker, who has been appointed as an adviser to help schools
throughout England to implement the scheme, said that 86 per cent of
parents at his 960-pupil school had signed up to the programme in
January 2005. No pupil was forced to take part, but if they refused,
their parents were called in. The school had also pledged to expel no
one, unless they were involved in drug dealing.

Over the year, 600 random drug tests were carried out on pupils aged
between 11 and 18. One child tested positive for cannabis. Mr Walker
said that one of the main benefits had been to encourage pupils to say
no to drugs .

"We found that children now had a way of saying no which was
acceptable to their peer group. Very quickly a lot of children said
they'd not try drugs, because knowing their luck they'd be the next to
be tested," he said.

The Abbey is a non-selective specialist school for business and
enterprise whose catchment area includes the second most deprived
council ward in the county. Having previously reached a high of 30 per
cent of pupils achieving five A* to C GCSE grades, 41 per cent of its
pupils achieved the same grades last year.

Heads at 103 secondaries will be asked to join the Kent scheme. It
will not be compulsory, but the schools will be assessed by Neil
McKegeney, a professor at the centre for drugs misuse at Glasgow
University, to see if Abbey's results are replicated.

"If it's properly evaluated in a positive way, it will clearly be a
model to be rolled out across the United Kingdom," said Mr Walker, who
was appointed as the Government's ambassador for random drug-testing
after retiring as Abbey's head two months ago.

A Department of Health report recently disclosed that one in every 50
schoolchildren claimed to have taken cocaine and 12 per cent said that
they had smoked cannabis. Overall, 19 per cent said that they had
taken illegal drugs - up from 11 per cent in 1998.

Yesterday advisors to the Department for Education and Skills said
that they would support all schools adopting the same approach, in
consultation with parents. Alan Johnson, the new Education Secretary,
said: "Mr Walker's drive and commitment is impressive. A key factor
was peer pressure by the kids against taking drugs.

"I am determined schools should have all the support they need to
tackle this issue."

The DFES said it hoped that research alongside the Kent pilot would
establish whether there was a direct link between random testing and
behaviour, attendance and academic achievement. However, it emphasised
that random drug-testing would not be mandatory and it would be up to
every individual head teacher to adopt it "if they feel it's right for
them".

Last night Martin Ward, deputy general-secretary of the Association of
School and College Leaders, said that at present few head teachers
carried out random drug-testing, because of the fears of infringing
human rights and jeopardising relations between pupils and staff. "I
suspect many more will take it up happily enough if they're part of a
general trend, but I'm sure a number will be reluctant to do so," he
said.

"It's not something many school leaders want to adopt because clearly
to some degree there's an infringement of privacy and it does tend to
change relations between the school and pupils to a degree."