Schoolgirl arrested after three people injured in Manchester school knife attack

A schoolgirl was arrested after three people were injured in a knife attack at Co-op Academy Manchester in Higher Blackley, where the school went into lockdown as emergency services moved in. Greater Manchester Police said the injuries were not believed to be serious and that there was not believed to be any wider threat to pupils and staff.

Police and ambulances were seen outside the gates and on school grounds at the Plant Hill Road site, as staff worked to secure the academy and reassure pupils. The incident unfolded at Co-op Academy Manchester, a mixed secondary school for pupils aged 11 to 16 at Plant Hill Road, Higher Blackley, Manchester, M9 0WQ.

The academy is led by Mr Phillip Quirk and is run by The Co-operative Academies Trust, which was founded in 2010. It was inspected by Ofsted on 13 and 14 March 2023 and judged to continue to be a good school, a reminder that even schools with a positive inspection history can be forced in an instant to manage violence, lockdown procedures and the aftermath for frightened children and staff.

The Blackley area has already seen knife violence involving children and teenagers. On 28 March 2022, an 11-year-old girl was stabbed near the school on Chapel Lane and a 12-year-old was arrested. That earlier case, and now the latest arrest at the academy itself, underline how school safeguarding is not only about lessons inside the classroom but also about the wider routes, gates and nearby streets pupils use every day.

The incident comes against a stubborn national and regional backdrop. The Youth Endowment Fund says police recorded more than 50,000 knife-enabled crimes in England and Wales in 2023/24, and that around 2% of teenagers say they carry a knife. At the same time, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority says police-recorded knife crime fell 15% in Greater Manchester over the last year, showing that prevention work can make a difference even as serious incidents continue to puncture daily life.

For schools, the challenge now is not just response but prevention: tighter supervision, faster identification of risk, and stronger support for pupils after violence. At Co-op Academy Manchester, the immediate priority was containing the danger and caring for those injured, but the longer test is how well the system protects children before weapons reach the school gate and how quickly it helps them recover afterward.