A 15-year-old schoolboy has been found guilty for the murder of another pupil after getting into an altercation at school, with teachers warning violence is on the rise in the classroom
Not so long ago, schools were places of quiet havens of learning where children and teachers felt secure. But in the past decade, that sense of sanctuary has changed amid numerous violent outbreaks.
The latest tragic case involved a 15-year-old student who has been found guilty for the murder of Harvey Willgoose after he attacked the schoolboy with a hunting knife during his lunch break at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield on February 3.
The defendant, who cannot be named due to his age, was on trial at Sheffield Crown Court after admitting manslaughter but denying murder. The horror unfolded after Harvey allegedly mocked the defendant in a lesson just before the incident, with CCTV showing the moments before a hunting knife was plunged into the schoolboy.
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This case is part of a worrying rise in school violence across the UK. A report into knife crime has shown a “serious increase in youth violence”.
Speaking to The Mirror, Adeela Ahmed Shafi MBE, professor of education in youth justice at the University of Gloucestershire said: “Some of the increases are down to the way knife crime is recorded by the police, and serious youth violence is disproportionate in different parts of the country for example, bigger cities see more of it.
“In any case, serious youth violence is a problem in our country but our children are not separate from us and society. It’s a societal problem.”
Stats from The Youth Endowment Fund found that just 82 percent of children felt safe in school, a figure that they warn needs education settings to take a serious look at safeguarding.
And it’s not just pupil-on-pupil violence, with a shocking number of teachers also experiencing attacks from students in the classroom.
“The death of Harvey Willgoose is a tragedy – and it’s saddening that this took place in school, a place where children should feel safe”, Dennis Simms, Assistant Director of the Education, Insights & Collaboration at the Youth Endowment Fund said.
“Last year, we surveyed 10,000 young people aged 13 to 17: 82 percent said they felt safe at school; just five percent said they did not.
“But while most children do feel safe in school, violence does happen. Seven in ten teachers told us that, in the last term, a child had physically assaulted another pupil in their school. Two in five said a child had physically assaulted a teacher or another member of staff.”
Caroline Willgoose, 51 and her husband Mark, 52, spoke to The Mirror about only discovering their “amazing” son had died after seeing a social media post saying ‘RIP Harvey’.
Despite their grief the couple have vowed to fight on until knife arches are installed in schools. “Children are going to school scared,” she said. “This cannot be allowed to happen again.”
It’s not the first time a student has been charged for the violence in the classroom.
A 14-year-old student was sentenced to 15 years in detention after stabbing two teachers and a pupil while screaming “I’m going to kill you” at a school in Carmarthenshire, last April.
Fiona Elias, Liz Hopkin and a pupil were treated in hospital with stab wounds after the attack at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman.
The teenager, who brought a weapon to school every day, used her father’s multi-tool knife to initially attack Ms Elias on April 24 2024.
Judge Paul Thomas KC, sentencing, said the girl had not shown remorse and had attacked the three for attention.
During the hearing, Ms Elias started reading her victim impact statement in tears and said she would never forget the moment she saw the tip of the blade.
“The image is etched in my mind,” she said, “it’s a moment that replays itself over and over”.
“The scars on my arms are a daily reminder of the pain I endured. She tried to murder me.”
In 1967, Sharon Louise Carr, dubbed ‘The Devil’s Daughter’ at the time, murdered 18-year-old Katie Rackliff at random as the latter walked home from a nightclub in Camberley, Surrey.
The murder initially went unsolved until June 1994, when Carr attacked and stabbed another pupil at Collingwood College Comprehensive School for no apparent reason and then repeatedly boasted about the murder of Rackliff to friends and family and in her diary entries made in prison.
She was convicted of the murder in 1997.
The school attack took place in the toilets and saw the killer hurt her victim’s back so severely that her lung became punctured.
She narrowly escaped death as five other students entered the toilets and got involved.
She was ordered to serve at least 14 years’ imprisonment but has remained imprisoned long after this minimum tariff expired due to her disruptive behaviour in prison.
So what’s causing it? Part of the problem, experts say, is that young men and boys “with strong sense of grievance” are “idolising” shooters involved in US massacres, including the 1999 Columbine High School shooting.
On September 13, 2024, Nicholas Prosper, who was 18 at the time, was arrested while walking on a residential road in Luton. Minutes before, he had murdered his mother, younger brother and sister, shooting them dead in their family home.
Police now believe Prosper had only carried out the first half of his plan, and was plotting a shooting at St Joseph’s Catholic primary school, where he and his siblings were pupils years before.
In the year to March 2024, 162 referrals were made to Prevent (the government-led counter-terrorism scheme) related to interest in school massacres, up 2 percent on the year before. Only 19 resulted in people being adopted for intervention and mentoring under the programme.
But unions have warned it’s not just students at risk, with a growing number of teachers reporting violence in their classrooms directed towards them.
Ann Maguire, a 61-year-old Spanish teacher in Leeds, was stabbed to death by 15-year-old William Cornick while teaching a Spanish lesson at Corpus Christi Catholic College.
Cornick admitted to psychiatrists that he had been planning the murder, and intended to do it four days earlier.
The student, who had a “deep seated grudge” against Ann Maguire, had also put out a Facebook message to his friends to see if any of them would murder Maguire for him for a payment of £10.
The incident unfolded on 28 April 2014 as Cornick attended lessons as normal. After morning break, he went to the top floor for his Spanish lesson. Half way through the lesson, he stabbed Maguire seven times in the back and neck with a 21cm (8.3in) knife.
He then chased her into the corridor where Susan Francis (Head of Languages), alerted by screams, ran to help her. She separated and shielded Maguire from Cornick but it was too late.
Cornick was sentenced to life with a minimum of 20 years at Leeds Crown Court on 3 November 2014.
The family established a charity, The Ann Maguire Arts Educational Fund, to provide bursaries and funding for the personal development of people under 18 years of age.
Her daughters, Kerry and Emma, said: “Mum had a special talent for developing opportunities for young people and we hope the charity will do the same.
“We really want mummy’s legacy to encompass everything she did in her work and the person she was to so many people.
“She taught for 40 years and affected thousands of pupils’ lives and we feel her legacy should be something that continues this work and what she gave to people.”
Matt Wrack, General Secretary of NASUWT tells The Mirror: “Almost 40 percent of teachers – both regionally and nationally – tell us that they have experienced physical violence from a pupil in the last year. While the problem is worst in secondary schools, we are also seeing an increase in this behaviour from primary pupils too.
“Teachers often report being bitten, kicked and punched while teaching. Pens, scissors, and even tables have been used as weapons by pupils during attacks. It is frankly dystopian that teachers have started to see this as ‘just part of the job.’
“The government has announced a review into behaviour in schools which we hope will address the serious issue of pupil violence. We need more targeted support for teachers and pupils in and out of the classroom, counsellors in every school, and an increase in alternative provision for pupils with higher behaviour needs. Teachers and pupils need urgent help.”
Nearly 950 students a day were suspended or expelled for violent behavior between 2022 and 2023, a Freedom of Information request revealed.
Some 124,276 assaults on other pupils led to suspension, with another 1,970 so bad that expulsion resulted.
In some cases, pupils as young as seven were found with knives, with nearly 100,000 violent incidents in schools over three years.
Christopher McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “Teachers need to be given specialist training in how to restrain violent pupils. Alarm buzzers to summon help would be a step in the right direction.”
The Department for Education said it was “committed to turning the tide on poor behaviour”.
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