Levenmouth Academy: Head defends removal of campus cops after no substance misuse incidents

Levenmouth Academy has gone more than a year without substance misuse on school grounds, according to headteacher Ruth McFarlane.

Additionally, she said things have been “very calm” at the school since both campus cops left the school in April.

“We know we’re in a volatile environment, but we’re aspirational that things are becoming much more safe in the school and that it is a more stable environment,” Ms McFarlane told Levenmouth area committee councillors on Wednesday.

She was at the meeting to help present the annual report on educational outcomes, but councillors instead pressed her to justify the school’s decision to remove campus police officers earlier this year.

When Ms McFarlane arrived at the Academy back in January 2023, the school already had one campus police officer. However, Ms McFarlane, along with the senior leadership team, felt there was a “real need to extend and build on that campus cop provision”.

“For me, the main reason for increasing the number of cops was to really hit any substance misuse that was happening in the building and on school grounds really hard,” she told councillors.

“I found that quite difficult on arrival at Levenmouth Academy. That was very much a top priority as regards safeguarding, and that was the main rationale for going from one campus cop to two.”

So, the Academy used more of its Pupil Equity Funding to hire a second community cop – which took the cost up to £72,000 for police support.

However, both campus cops were removed from their posts when funding ran out in April 2024.

The decision not to renew their contracts and funding prompted some anger from local politicians and parents at the time, which is why Ms McFarlane was yet again asked to justify the school’s decision on Wednesday.

Ms McFarlane claimed that since hiring the campus cops, the Academy has seen a “real range of improvements” thanks to the wide variety of support that has been put in place.

The Academy has hired full time guidance teachers, it has invested in building more pupil support structure, and it has increased the capacity of the senior leadership team to respond to issues quickly and effectively.

“We started to see a reduction [in incidents] and I’m really pleased to say we’ve not had a single case of substance misuse in the building or grounds since May 2023,” Ms McFarlane said.

She added that was why when it came time to renew the campus cop contracts, the Academy took a calculated risk.

“Money is one of our most valuable resources so when it came to spending the Pupil Equity Funding for 2024/25, a decision was made that £72,000 could be better spent on direct interventions,” she said.

The money will instead go towards getting more young people involved with the local Community Trade Hub, increasing their chances of securing apprenticeships and college placements, and notably it will allow the Academy to increase their capacity for onsite counselling while young people wait for NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

“You’ll know the waiting lists are quite extensive and by the time a family is looking for a CAMHS appointment for their child, they’re at crisis point. So the school wanted to be able to put support in in the form of counsellors,” she said.

“We needed to have funding to do things like that so we made the decision that we felt that the community campus cops had done a really good job to get us where we wanted to be and we could take the chance and we could try and go alone with all the other supports we’ve put in place.”

She continued: “If we need more support at a later stage, we will need to re-evaluate that and potentially look at redirecting our funds [back into campus policing] in the future, but £72,000 is a lot of money that we feel could be better spent based on where we are as a school currently,” she said.