Police will be using The Argus’s Knives Cost Lives campaign to urge schoolchildren not to carry blades.

Officers will visit every secondary school in Sussex during the next academic year in an attempt to stop youngsters carrying blades.

They will be taking press cuttings from our campaign to stir debate in the classrooms.

One of the campaign aims is for greater education of youngsters to teach the simple message: respect cannot be won at the end of a blade.

PC Caroline Adams, youth safety officer based at Lewes, said: “We hope to help encourage discussions about the perception versus the reality of knife crime.

“People think lots of young people are carrying knives but when you talk to youngsters you realise only a minority do.

“If a young person thinks his classmates are all carrying blades then he might be tempted to do the same, making the problem worse when his classmates are not likely to be carrying weapons. “We want to facilitate a discussion so children will be taught by their peers because we have found this is the best way to learn.”

A team of 21 neighbourhood school officers will attend a training day at the beginning of September before visiting schools.

The mother of murder victim Michael Morgan, 15, who was stabbed to death last year at a party, praised the police for its education campaign.

Helen Long, 36, of Nicolson Drive, Shoreham, said: “It is a great idea and I wish the police had gone to all schools to teach this message a long time ago.

“Since Michael was killed, all I seem to read about in the papers is knife crime. But education has to start at home and parents should tell their children about the dangers knives can cause.”

Last month The Argus revealed 1,050 knife crimes were committed in Sussex in the past year, an average of one every eight and a half hours.

Now more than 850 readers have signed our petition demanding that the Government gets tough on knife criminals.

Readers signed the petition addressed to Home Office minister Tony McNulty demanding tougher penalties.

As well as increasing education, our campaign wants the Government to set a minimum sentence of two years for carrying a knife without lawful reason. It also wants an end to automatic early release for anyone convicted of knife crime.

To sign the petition, click here.