To think teachers should wear body cams

[Ffs555]

Rail staff are wearing them, Wetherspoons staff had them on when I went in, it's becoming more common luckily.
I know it isn't a foolproof solution but I think it would stop so many behavioural incidents.
There are signs up in many public facing workplaces saying abuse won't be tolerated, yet it seems teachers/support staff are expected to put up with it 'because they're just kids'.
I used to be a teacher, was threatened by a pupil, he got half a day in internal exclusion and that was it. I had a year 11 pupil make death threats about another teacher in front of me.
I've had another year 11 male pupil walk up to me and grab the mouse out of my hand when I was on the pc.
However have got off lightly compared to many teachers. Still, we're sworn at constantly and verbally abused.
I have left teaching unfortunately due to the behaviour, my new role is much less stressful.
You practically have to bring a weapon into a school to get permanently excluded, schools don't like to permanently exclude due to costs and reputation.
We used to have a very difficult pupil who brought in a fake weapon one day. The headteacher himself said unfortunately it wasn't a real one, otherwise we could have excluded him permanently.
Anyway, I don't know what the solution is, all this restorative conversation stuff doesn't work. Kids don't care about a detention or even a day's exclusion in a lot of cases.

DH and I were talking about this yesterday after he was threatened by yet another pupil.

The kids are so manipulative now, there’s already a staff member in his school going through a case because a child said she hit him when she did not (backed up by the inconsistency of the child’s and friends accounts) Yet she’s been dragged through meeting after meeting because of it. If there was CCTV this would have been squashed immediately.

Yesterday the child was threatening to say DH was behaving inappropriately towards him to try and avoid being in trouble for his own behaviour, blackmail essentially. Obviously it was dealt with very harshly but 1-1 it can come to his word against mine and crush a career that’s 10+ years in the making.

Good teachers with nothing to hide will welcome CCTV, cameras, anything to protect themselves against false allegations, violence and god knows what else. You’re on CCTV almost everywhere in the world now anyway.

Does your DH or any of the other teachers in the school discuss this with each other? Or consider working together to end it?

If only teachers wore cameras .
Parents could then see what they have to cope with.

But then , parents would see how well the teachers cope in a classroom.

Double edged sword for teachers.

@Pollyputhekettleon It was reported straight to the head and dealt with and that child is now never to be alone with any staff member 1-1.

However, there’s a huge staffing issue. It’s impossible to say you’ll never be 1-1 with any of the children again in this particular school because it’s like ghost town teacher wise.

DH is high up SLT and they are thinking of ideas to prevent this type of thing as well as the general violence but they can’t use cameras without LA consent AFAIK.

Exactly. See how teachers cope alone with 30+ children of very different needs with no resources, no staff and a very crammed curriculum.

Tbh I think some of these manipulative kids should be asked to leave the first time, not after a few instances.

You would be doing them a favour. You can't get on in life by doing this kind of thing, you scrape by. Letting them accuse and not bear the consequences is not what happens in the adult world.

This is not possible. It would be an illegal exclusion.

@MrsHamlet - no doubt. But if you go around accusing people of doing things to you in the adult world it tends to cost you.

That's it? How is it sustainable to have children in school who can't be left alone with any staff member, even if there were enough staff, which there aren't. Does no one consider preventing this kind of thing by, you know, kicking the little darlings out? We're talking about blackmail and false accusations of assault. And still their 'right to education' trumps it!

Yes. But sadly schools don't operate that way. We can't

It's only illegal because teachers, as a group, allow it to be illegal. There's absolutely no way current policies could stand if teachers showed some solidarity with each other, stood up for themselves and demanded it change. The general public would absolutely support it if they had any idea what's going on.

Cobblers. It's illegal because it's against the law.

Absolutely. Look at the 'education' they're actually getting here. That you can blackmail people and make false assault accusations and they'll still bow to your right to an education. How are they supposed to function in the adult world when this is what they're being taught by the education system as a whole?

Laws change, all the time. Are the current laws exactly the same as they were, say, 60 years ago? I doubt it. Has there been a single campaign by a teacher's union to reform the law on exclusion?

Well I did have someone accuse me of something at work which I had not done. I was investigated but so was my accuser. She was then sacked and barred from the building. All trust had gone in her to do the job. Her motivation was sheer dislike; and I think that she thought it would go her way and not mine. Consequences are important. Even in school.

No they shouldn't have to deal with physical/verbal/sexual abuse. It should be one strike and out. Why we have an education system system that prizes chance after chance for violent people while screwing over the education of the majority I don't know. Teachers deserve huge salaries!

@MyGooseisTotallyLoose 'out' and then go where?

Children who make false accusations are usually testing whether they will be believed by saying that a safe adult did it, when usually it's a
Family member that has done something and it's much worse that the accusation. These children should get social workers and therapy not expulsions

Where they go is not the problem or the responsibility of teachers. Absolutely none of their business. That's the government's problem. Teachers are responsible for protecting themselves, and the other children, from abuse.

@Pollyputhekettleon I think you're of the belief that people step out of line because the punishments and consequences aren't big enough .

This assumes that the child has the capacity to inhibit impulses when in fight or flight mode and knows and is able to access a safe
An alternative method of dealing with those strong feelings and that the school will allow them to use that method.

All the wishing and shoulding in the world won't change the fact that some children don't have this capacity (sometimes down to send sometimes trauma in their home
Or community life) YET and excluding children has been shown time and time again to make them worse not better. The school to prison pipeline shows this.

www.wearebreakthrough.org/blog/break-the-cycle-ending-school-to-prison-pipelines-in-the-uk

Firstly it doesn't matter why they're doing it, teachers should not be forced to continue to teach them. Secondly, you absolutely can't prove why they're doing it. Thirdly, whether they get social workers and therapy is up to the government, not teachers. Fourth, they can be expelled which will give them plenty more time to meet with their social workers and therapists. The two are not mutually exclusive. Everybody wins.

@Pollyputhekettleon ps yes I agree WHILE the child is being violent or abusive of course teachers shouldn't have to try to teach them (they wouldn't be able to when the pupil is in fight or flight mode anyway) but what I'm saying is that permanently excluding every child who has a big outburst at school and placing them in a big sin bin might seem tempting (especially if you work or study in that particular classroom) but for society as a whole that will lead to more social problems more prisoners and more children that are even worse behaved in the next generation

@Pollyputhekettleon schools can refer to therapy and for social worker assessment

@Pollyputhekettleon but I agree what's an accusation of any kind has happened it's best if the child is taught by someone else