When a school asked me whether it could impose a total ban on pupils bringing in knives, you would have expected my advice to have been short: to the point, if you will excuse the pun.
After all, any school that would allow pupils to carry offensive weapons would surely have been an extraordinary proposition at any time, but particularly given the widespread concern about gang activity. Yet the question was far from ill-considered, and was of considerable urgency.
Sikh parents had just told the school that their son had recently become a Khalsa (or baptised) Sikh, and, in honouring his vows, was now carrying a kirpan – a small curved ornamental steel dagger – beneath his clothing.
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