Pupils at Lammas School and Sports College in Leyton queue to pass through a metal detector PA

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EVERY secondary school pupil in a London borough will be searched for weapons in a bid to stop teenagers carrying knives into the classroom.

Waltham Forest is the first council in Britain to bring in random screening by introducing knife arches in every secondary school.

The scanners will electronically ‘frisk’ every pupil for weapons when they arrive for classes.

Teachers and council officials launched the crackdown at the Lammas School and Sports College in Leyton.

Headteacher Shona Ramsay said: “It’s a preventative measure to deter our young people from carrying knives.

“We don’t have a problem here and I want to keep it that way. We’re really pressing home the message that schools are safe.”

From today, the arches will be used in each of the borough’s 19 secondary schools at least once a term.

Police will visit on random dates, with no warning given to children. The scheme aims to cover all state pupils in secondary education.

Five teenagers have been stabbed to death in London this year, including a 16-year-old boy who died after a gang fight in Larkhall Park in Lambeth on 27 April.

The victim, who has not yet been named, died from multiple stab wounds to the chest and body.

Charles Hendricks, 18, who died from a knife wound after a street attack in Walthamstow in August, was one of 22 teenagers stabbed to death in London last year.

Chris Robbins,a council member for children and young people, said: “There’s no doubt that there is an issue of knife and weapon crime in London and it would be foolish to ignore that.”

Police regularly use portable knife arches at key points such as train and Tube stations to carry out spot checks for knives.

Inspector Mike Hamer, head of the borough’s safer schools programme, said: “There has been an overwhelmingly positive response and we do not accept that that the arches criminalise all young people.”

Pupil Mischa Haynes, 12, said at today’s launch: “It makes you feel safe in school and it's a place where you should feel safe.”