They were doing that back in the 1970s and 1980s, at least in Berkshire (I don’t know what the score was in other areas)

The only difference is that the Govt are actually admitting to doing it these days and they have better computers/databases

When I was in junior school (1977 onwards) they opened up a file on you and if you were disruptive in class they would put a coloured dot on the file. The folders themselves were fairly distinctive (you could not get them in normal office supplies places, and they were a special colour).

I only got to know about them as my mum befriended one of the teachers who let on what they meant (I had managed to “earn” myself one of the markers – had that ADHD but it wasn’t seen as a medical condition in those days, you were just “naughty”)

I moved in and out of various towns in SE England and ended up in a variety of junior/middle schools both state and private, when I was interviewed for high school in 1985 the headteacher had that file in front of him and raised his eyebrows a bit when he saw how many schools I had been through

years later in high school whilst exploring the building (as you do) me and my mates saw a load of these files left around in an office (the headteacher was away and had foolishly left it unlocked). This would have been around 1988 or 1989.

We managed to look in a few and they were exactly the same ones from junior school, complete with the marker dots, the details of all the schools you had been to, info from teachers, other schools, in some cases social services or the NHS…

What capped it all was when in 6th form (1989) we got shown round the Police station as part of those “social awareness” lessions

This cop said “this is where we deal with the info about juvenile offenders”. He didn’t let any of us look too closely at what was inside but I could clearly see loads of those school files were on one of the desks and the cop hinted that schools and the old bill exchanged info..