A POLICE officer will be stationed permanently in every secondary school in Ealing for the next five years.

Senior officers believe the "trailblazing" move will engage young people, improve safety and cut down street crime and anti-social behaviour.

PCs will man the gates in the morning and patrol the area around the school as pupils leave in the afternoon, and will work with young people to build up relationships and knowledge.

Ealing Council agreed on Tuesday to pay £525,000 over the next two years to fund seven more officers in addition to the six already in place, amounting to £37,500 per year for every officer in the scheme.

Schools are helping to cover the cost and Ealing police has agreed to fund the project for at least a further three years.

It will apply to 13 council-run schools around Ealing as well as the borough's pupil referral unit. Two schools in Acton - The Ellen Wilkinson School for Girls and Twyford Church of England High School - will share one officer.

Police community support officers are also being drafted in to work with all the borough's primary schools and liaise with secondary school PCs.

Superintendent Ian Jenkins, of Ealing Police, said: "No other borough of this size has done it - I regard it as trailblazing.

"We want to work with headteachers and with the children so they can have the best opportunity to deliver good academic results.

"This is not about high crime levels in schools, it's about taking a partner-ship approach.

"All the children in this borough will get to know their local officer again. That builds up a rapport, confidence and knowledge.

"It will have a big impact on anti-social behaviour.

"Having an authoritative presence in the area will ensure that the good conduct which is always there in the majority of young people is carried on all the way home."

Up to 80 per cent of the officers' time will be spent working in schools or patrolling the immediate area, with the rest taken up by paperwork.

It is hoped they will help cut the number of young people who fall victim to street crime and robbery.

The move has been cautiously welcomed by teachers despite concerns about the possibility of school children being criminalised.

Ealing NUT spokesman Nick Grant said: "We welcome this as an element of community liaison, but we hope that nobody thinks that there is regular criminal activity going on in schools which requires the police to be there.

"We're also concerned about the implication that maybe with a police officer in school, knife crime is suddenly going to stop. It won't.

"To my knowledge there has never been a single incident of knife crime inside an Ealing school."