The stabbing of the well-loved teacher Ann Maguire came as a devastating shock to everyone who heard.

I couldn’t quite fathom what had taken place, or indeed imagine if that horrific situation had been at my own school. After listening to a snippet of Any Questions on Radio 4 a few days later there seemed to be a prevailing agreement among the politicians about why this had happened: the dangerous influence of video games.

For those of you who have bypassed the last few decades, video games can be played on TVs, computers, tablets, you name it, making them highly accessible. The most popular video games are the most violent so, naturally, with any echo of similar behaviour in young people, video games are the first to be slated. Frankly, I see this target as nothing more than an obvious scapegoat. It seems very easy to link aggressive behaviour with something as accessible and as globally popular as this. My question is: If the blame lies with this entertainment, then why have we not entered into the next World War, with some 80 per cent of the male population having engaged with violent video games?

My experience is that most of us, with a few horrific exceptions, are able to establish the boundary between fantasy and reality; we tend not to internalise these fictitious worlds.

Perhaps, for arguments’ sake, if his purpose was to imitate these video games, then his method for distinguishing between these fabricated images and real life seems flawed, unusual at the least. It is similar to the way not everyone who drinks becomes an alcoholic, I see no difference with these games. Many of the older generation are concerned by these – in some cases – disturbing violent images.

When my dad talked about this, I reminded him of how this idea of ‘idealised’ killing isn’t a new concept. Take James Bond: surrounded by women and cars, Sean Connery practically drips with suaveness. What is he? An assassin. Again: fiction.

Now, although video games are more graphic than they’ve ever been, boys have been surrounded by this type of violent amusement for decades – it’s all down to the individual.

In light of this awful tragedy, a suggestion that struck me as incredibly excessive was to install CCTV cameras in every classroom. School surely can seem intimidating enough without this, I believe it would limit teachers personality and creativity in the classroom. Teaching has come robotic enough at is, it can seem on occasion as if you are listening to a regurgitation of a teacher’s manual as it is – let’s not worsen this.

Perhaps I’m being unrealistic? After all I go to a small rural school in Oxfordshire, violence worthy of any recognition is not a regular occurrence. However, the way I’ve witnessed aggressive situations being resolved, is using the underestimated power of calm communication – finding the root of the problem. What needs to be recognised is that one child’s actions cannot be used to blame an entire industry, or go into discipline turmoil – in the end it is down to the individual.