Parents will be told that they must allow their children to be searched at any time within school premises if they want to get them into the schools of their choice, under new plans to rid Britain's classrooms of the scourge of knives.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, will put the battle against illegal weapons at the top of her agenda when she unveils her Tackling Violence Action Plan tomorrow. The blueprint for tackling knife-related violence will include a radical move to give police hundreds of metal detectors to catch young people carrying hidden weapons in schools, clubs and pubs.

The proposal to introduce "airport-style" security, particularly in schools identified as facing the greatest danger from the knife-crime epidemic, represents a remarkable U-turn for the Government, which had previously dismissed the idea as an overreaction.

But the proposals will also shift more responsibility on to parents, with a plan to make them sign up to tougher scanning and searching policies as a condition of entry when their children first apply for a school place.

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Schools and colleges can make consent to searches at their gates a condition of enrolment for pupils aged above 16 under laws enabling searches on suspicion, which came into force last year. But the Government wants to extend this to all pupils.

"We would prefer schools to make their own arrangements to support these new proposals, but ultimately any school has a statutory power to make reasonable rules a condition of admission," said a source at the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

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