Welsh Government ‘palmed off’ concerns of poor behaviour at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman months before attack

Emily Price

The Welsh Government “palmed off” concerns about poor behaviour at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman three months before the stabbing of two teachers and a pupil, according to a former teacher at the school.

Ceri Myers took on the role of Deputy Headteacher at the Ammanford school in September 2023.

He told S4C’s current affairs programme Y Byd ar Bedwar that he wrote to the government in January 2024 to express concerns about vapes, pupil behaviour and what he describes as a lack of clarity in government guidelines for addressing it.

Ceri was particularly concerned about the difference between the powers in Wales and England to search pupils for prohibited items.

Weapons

Ceri said: “I got punched in the back of the head. That was deemed as a once in a career incident. I’ve probably had 5 or 6 once in a career incidents which I’ve dealt with this last year.

“There’s a number of occasions where weapons have been brought into the school, including a knife.”

Ceri and the Welsh Government exchanged 7 emails between January 2024 and April 24, 2024 when two teachers, Fiona Elias and Liz Hopkin, along with a student, were injured in a stabbing by a 14-year-old girl.

Attack

Ceri said: “There were a series of emails where the Government came back and palmed me off to some extent.

“I said I wasn’t happy with their response and I wanted a further conversation. The last email was sent on the morning of the attack in Ysgol Dyffryn Aman.

“You never go into a school thinking that would happen, but I believe that there were warning signs for every school in Wales that something like this was going to happen.”

A Freedom of Information request to Ysgol Dyffryn Aman revealed that during the 2023/2024 academic year, there were four recorded incidents of weapons being brought onto school premises – yet only two pupils were permanently excluded.

During the trial of the pupil responsible for the stabbing, it emerged that she had previously been caught with a knife in school in September 2023, resulting in a fixed-term exclusion.

Threatened

Welsh Government guidelines state that the use, or threatened use of an offensive weapon, can be considered an exceptional circumstance where a headteacher can permanently exclude a learner for a first or one-off offence.

However, Ceri says this did not always happen.

He said: “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’.

“Ultimately, what that means is, that pupils know that if they bring a knife into school, or another weapon into school, there is no threat to their place in school.”

“We’re coming at the problem from two different perspectives. The local authority doesn’t support the decisions we need to make.”

Guilty

The 14-year-old girl – who cannot be named for legal reasons – denied attempted murder, but admitted the stabbings.

She was found guilty of three counts attempted murder following a trial at Swansea Crown Court earlier this month.

In a joint statement, the Leader of Carmarthenshire County Council, Cllr Darren Price, and the Headteacher of Ysgol Dyffryn Aman, Mr. James Durbridge, said: “Carmarthenshire County Council and Ysgol Dyffryn Aman are very proud of the excellent relationship that exists between the Local Authority and the School.

“Following the conclusion of the recent trial, the County Council has referred the case, in relation to the circumstances of the incident of 24 April 2024, to the Regional Safeguarding Board and we are awaiting their decision as to the format and timeline of the multi-agency review.

“We are not aware of incidents where the School and Local Authority have been working against each other or in disagreement with one another. We will respond to any of the findings the independent multi-agency review may identify.”

After the incident at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman, After the incident at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman, Ceri Myers resigned from his position as Deputy Headteacher and is now working at an academy in London, where he oversees pupil safety and behaviour.

The Welsh Government has met with Ceri to discuss his concerns. However, he has since returned to work at the academy, continuing to lead on pupil safety and behaviour.

He said: “I don’t believe that I can work in a system where, to some extent, my hands have been tied, and there is no support to do the things that are needed to ensure that behaviour is as good as it can be, and that staff and pupils are as safe as they can be within schools.

“The Government is asleep at the wheel, and I really believe that. I want to see the guidelines give more powers to schools so that it is more clear what schools can do and what schools cannot do – and that this enables schools to be more strict.”

Issues

In an interview with Y Byd ar Bedwar, Lynne Neagle MS, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, said: “Any violence towards teachers or staff is completely unacceptable. All schools should be safe places for learners and staff. All schools should have behaviour policies in place which are consistently implemented.

“As a government we have been focusing really strongly on tackling issues of poor behaviour. We’ve got our behaviour summit coming up where we’re going to have an action focused look at what we need to do in this space.

“We’re developing a behaviour toolkit for schools to help schools to manage challenging behaviour and… we also have strong guidance in place on what can be reasons for exclusion and currently, having a knife in school can be a reason for automatic exclusion.

“We absolutely haven’t been sleeping at the wheel and I’ve seen correspondence from the gentleman that referred to teachers being able to search for vapes and drugs and they can already undertake those searches with consent but as I’ve said our guidance is very clear on the issue of knives.

“They can be a cause for immediate exclusion. In relation to what happened at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman, obviously my heart goes out to everybody at the school.

“Now that the trial is over we need to look at everything that happened in the run up to that day to understand what happened and learn any lessons. In our behaviour summit we are going to be bringing together local authorities, practitioners and trade unions to look at some of these issues.”

For the full story watch Y Byd ar Bedwar on Monday, 17 February, at 8pm on S4C, S4C Clic and BBC iPlayer with English subtitles.