Private schools 'must wake up to threat of drugs'

Independent schools and parents who use them are "in denial" about the lethal threat of illegal drugs, a campaigner warned today.

Elizabeth Burton-Phillips - a teacher at an independent school from High Wycombe, Bucks - said dealers target middle-class children in the same way that paedophiles "groom" their victims. Her son, a heroin addict, killed himself in despair at his condition.

Her warning came as the headmaster of a leading independent school called for instant expulsion for any pupil caught taking drugs and blamed the pressure on young people which propels many to taking drugs on the Government's "obsession" with exams.

Mrs Burton-Phillips, 56, has written a book - Mum Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid: What Drugs Did To My Family - about her family life after her twin sons Nick and Simon became heroin addicts.

She heads the RE department at Godstowe Preparatory School and now tours schools warning pupils and parents of the dangers of drugs.

Mrs Burton-Phillips told the annual meeting of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference in Bournemouth that many schools were failing to face up to reality.

Headteachers sat in stunned silence as she demanded: "Could it be that one of the significant problems that middle-class youth face in our independent schools is denial that your school could ever have any drug problem or the foolish belief that cannabis is not that serious? As one middle-class parent remarked to me recently, 'Elizabeth, of course we are lucky, we don't have a problem with drugs in our schools in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Eton, because the Queen lives here'."

Mrs Burton-Phillips added: "I have worked in the independent sector for 35 years. It has been my observation that large percentages of pupils in the senior schools feel that drugs cannot touch them. Sometimes, they are sadly not grounded in family life, and are compensated by having too much money," and dealers were "very aware" of this, she said.

"As one recovering public school cocaine addict recently said to me - 'the drug dealers simply charge us twice the street price'.

"All parents are rightly terrified that their children may be targeted and abused by a paedophile. Why then, is very little said about the grooming which is done by drug dealers?"

Mrs Burton-Phillips's remarks followed a speech to the conference by Anthony Seldon - headmaster of £24,441-a-year Wellington College in Berkshire - when Dr Seldon explained that he operates a zero-tolerance policy to drug taking.

Dr Seldon said the Government's obsession with holding teachers accountable using exam results created a "very narrow focus on our schools" which was "contributing to the rise of mental distress" that led some children to try and become addicted to drugs.