Police have taken action in Stafford in response to a national online trend known as "school wars", it has been revealed.

The trend, which has involved posts on social media encouraging pupils from different schools to fight each other, has caused concerns in areas including London, Kent, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.

It also sparked questions at a recent Stafford Borough Council meeting.

Inspector Kelly Wareing was asked about the impact of the trend locally by Cllr Marnie Phillips, who represents the town's Baswich ward.

Speaking at the latest Community Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee meeting, she said: "I saw there is something going around the schoolchildren – 'school wars'. There's a list of local schools versus other schools locally and you get so many points if you see one of these kids in the street, so many points if you beat them up and video them – just lots of horrible stuff.

"Do you know if this is starting to dissipate?"

Inspector Kelly Wareing told the committee it was a national issue, which started on social media platform TikTok in the London area.

She said: "Different rival schools challenge each other to fight and they get so many points for a traditional fisticuffs fight, up to higher points for stabbing somebody – it is really horrendous.

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"It has been through the West Midlands and landed in Stafford.

"The schools themselves referred it into us to say 'we've heard the kids talking about it, we're worried, what should we do'.

"I held a meeting with the main schools and we put a plan about it.

"The teachers were sending out messages to the parents to make them aware of it and to feed in any intelligence or information if they knew their children were getting involved.

"All schools were asked to put teachers on the gates at home time.

"I put my staff on the gate at home time and we increased the patrol strategy for the middle bit, as they were more likely to meet in the park at Rowley, so we increased the patrols there.

"We've not had any issues, touch wood.

"Then a screenshot came out and all the Staffs schools were mentioned – I think each school knows about it now.

"We've had some input from a totally independent online expert that monitors children and the trends that are going around and they didn't seem particularly worried.

"It's another thing the kids don't want the adults to understand, it's very virtual and it's unlikely to get any traction here, but you can't rely on that."

Inspector Wareing said police had been monitoring the situation every day and had seen no incidents of children fighting from any schools.

"We've had no specific intelligence around any in particular that are going to do that", she added.

"We have tracked down the person that sent that viral and he was spoken to – a lovely lad from a lovely family, who is not even at that school.

"He's just one of those who has seen it, shared it and said 'look at this'.

"He didn't even think about the consequences, didn't create it himself but has just shared it.

"His mum was completely apologetic.

"It's good in some ways it hasn't come from a Stafford kid.

"I can't promise it isn't going to happen, but we are doing as much as we can to prevent it."