To think he should be expelled for threatening me outside school?

[fedupteacher9]

Do I just need to suck it up ?

I am being routinely assaulted and threatened by students in my new job which I have been at for one term.

I am currently in a support role (school librarian) after leaving teaching, thinking the pay cut would be worth less mental anguish of abuse from students.

I have had 2 books thrown at my head by 2 different students. One was expelled and then unexpelled because the school feared being fined by the LA for incorrect expulsion. When he was unexpelled, I was aghast that he felt comfortable coming back into my library and sitting on his phone when he was meant to be in his lesson. Multiple times I had to get on call to remove him. SLT have obviously not taken this seriously.

The second boy has yet to face consequences. Headmaster told me his punishment would be a year ban from the library: for assaulting me?! Am I crazy?

If I told you what happened today, you wouldn't believe me. On the street I live on, a student approaches me and my partner and points a watergun at me. 'I should shoot you for kicking me out the library'. My partner just said 'come on lads, behave' and we walked away. This is my dream job, I competed with 50 other candidates for it, and one term in and I am applying elsewhere, to private schools where this shit won't happen.

If you are wondering why this is happening, these boys are retaliating to being removed or banned from the library by me for poor behaviour, truculence, abuse of staff or insubordination. I am not raising my voice at any of these boys.

I'm fucking livid.

Only on Mumsnet could it be considered reasonable to have books thrown at you and to be threatened outside of your workplace.

Op - sounds like a very difficult situation. Hope you find a way through it.

Join a Union. If you are in one contact them immediately through their Head Office and tell them you feel intimidated both within and outwith your workplace by pupils and the SMT is not protecting you. Ask for a Regional Rep ie a paid union official. Document everything with time and date. Your employer has a duty of care towards you and they cannot ignore that. Keep mentioning 'duty of care'. As regards the idiot with the water pistol lodge a formal complaint with the police tomorrow, naming names. It put you in a state of fear and alarm in your own street for simply doing your job. The Police will have lots of sympathy for that. Give all of these individuals consequences. Witmum it would be assault, and your opinion does not count.

Report it and start keeping a work diary.

Only on Mumsnet could it be considered reasonable to have books thrown at you and to be threatened outside of your workplace

And only on MN would you find an op being urged to contact the police over a teenager threatening to squirt water on her.

Someone said threatened with murder, I mean fgs 😂 It was a water pistol. I would love to see the look on the police officers face that took that report.

My neighbours 6 year old was riding a sit on tractor earlier and drove towards me shouting gleefully that he was going to run me over. He only just missed me. Maybe I should report him for dangerous driving or attempted murder.

Call the police

The item he pointed at me did look like a gun and could well have been an airsoft gun and it was only after I was fucking shaking and terrified was I able to deduce that it was probably just a water pistol.

Where do people like you get off?

Scotland has a population of circa 5m. I think only one pupil was permanently excluded last year. It’s something the Scottish government is extremely proud of. And it’s why they have to pay their teachers £10k more s year than England. Danger money. Scottish schools are - in my experience- horrendously violent.

I echo that the school can do something. I’ve worked in schools that would exclude kids for behaviour outside of school and schools that wouldn’t. I’ve also just moved (same town) from teaching in a comp (I’m a teacher of 15ish years and I have always been very committed to non selective education) to teaching in a selective school (not the same as private I know but not miles away). I was just done with: 1) a minority of truly awful kids routinely being aggressive with no consequences 2) their awful parents who were happy to shout/swear/threaten violence 3) crap, unsupportive SLT. My new school is a dream. I’ve done half a term, no child or parent has sworn at me, the absolute worst thing that has happened is a couple of kids are a bit chatty in lesson - this is taken extremely seriously by SLT because it’s not good enough and the whole atmosphere is happy, kind and caring. I have already decided I’m never leaving!! It sounds to me like your school (like two I’ve worked at) is not very good. Get out as soon as you can. There are good comps out there (I’ve worked in one horrendous one, one slightly shit one, one good one and one amazing one) but life is 100% easier in schools that select, whether that’s grammar or private. I actually feel awful writing that because lots of great kids go to comps, but until SLT and governments support staff, we need to vote with our feet. I want to teach. I don’t want to be routinely abused and threatened.

I don't know if you have some sort of death wish but both of those situations are really not a joke.

WHAT. ONE?! In the whole country?! Wtaf. You couldn't pay me a million to teach in a school like that.

I'm glad to hear that such exclusions are still possible in England.

I don't want to give the name of my main LA, but permanent exclusions are no longer allowed at all (though it's possible to organise a whole-school transfer with parental agreement) and temporary exclusions are now only a few days.

The emphasis is on inclusion and 'restorative justice'. Some schools no longer allow punishment exercises.

Our off-campus provision has been cut back and we were told that only 'pupils known to the police' would be considered for a place.

Our LA actually tried to stop exam leave for seniors because the council was concerned that it gave rise to more anti-social behaviour in town centres and so on.

I now only do an occasional bit of supply. When I was still in post, a female pupil alerted me to the fact that a teenage boy had texted all his pals a message about what he wanted to do to me. (A violent threat of a sexual nature - torture rather than rape.)

I did contact the police. I didn't expect him to be charged, but hoped that someone might be prepared to have a word with him. "Oh, but does a boy of that age really understand what that means?"

To be fair, our Depute/line manager at least made sure that the boy was kept away from me.

I'm genuinely pleased that you still have basic standards in your part of the world.

I had a male colleague who was assaulted. The boy (bigger than the teacher) tried to claim that he was the victim. The parents insisted that there be an investigation. The police found that the teacher had no case to answer - he'd only stretched out a hand to stop the second punch connecting.

Nevertheless, the parents contacted the Education Department. My colleague was suspended, pending an investigation. He was eventually cleared, but at his hearing an Ed Officer told him that he "should have run away".

My colleague returned to work for the rest of the year and then quit teaching.

What if the neighbour was 6 feet tall and 16 (still a child at school) and every time he saw you in the street he covered you in water, or threatened you. You would live like that? Thats okay with you? He is a child after all, hes a school child. No I dont think you would like it, all talk and no thought

Hopefully your friend was suspended with pay at least.

I am so prepared to simply stop caring about my job.

I was a school librarian at a school in Woking for almost a year, and nothing like this ever happened and the headmaster was very happy to do 'managed moves' for naughty pupils.

The item he pointed at me did look like a gun and could well have been an airsoft gun and it was only after I was fucking shaking and terrified was I able to deduce that it was probably just a water pistol. Where do people like you get off?

Bit of a different version of events there from your op isn't it? The version where you seemed to know it was a water pistol, your oh said behave lads and you just walked off?

So you were shaking and terrified. Your partner appears to have been calm and told them to behave (hardly something you'd say if you suspected it might be a gun wielding maniac is it?)

So are you a massive drama llama and embellisher op? Or is your partner just a bit slow and didn't realise the awful potential danger you were in?

BF is a bit more rational than me and he clocked that it was a water pistol immediately. I am not that knowledgeable about the intricacies of air soft guns, water pistols, bb guns, rifles, etc. how the hell was i supposed to know it was a water pistol and not a bb gun?

Yes, he was suspended with pay. The last that I heard, my colleague was very happy in a completely different line of work.

The boy was 15 when he hit my colleague. At the age of 16 he was arrested for Taking a vehicle Without Consent. (Any younger and the Children's Panel normally deals with you here.)

As you suggest, a great deal depends on individual headteachers.

I thought children were no longer expelled, or "unexpelled" - isn't excluded the new term?

Well apparently now you do know op. Your oh immediately recognised it as a water pistol after all.

So no need to froth and fume about what it might have been.

It was a water pistol. You were threatened with being made damp by a child.

That's it.

Move on and resolve to only raise real issues for investigation, if any occur.

Exclusion is normally the official term nowadays, and can refer to temporary or permanent removal from school. I still hear 'expulsion' being referred to outside official circles.

Ignore them their opinion does not matter. Report it to your Union, report it to the police and get a paper trail. Keep reporting it. You can also ask for a staff meeting in your workplace with other members of your Union or a joint staff meeting for all Union members regardless of the Union they are in. Ive seen the latter done.

….and it was clear it was a water pistol? ffs…..this is totally unacceptable, would you be ok with a colleague doing this to you in the street?

Is it really worth rocking the boat as a new staff member? I have not yet passed probation and after the probation period they may think I'm not worth the hassle if I am getting unions involved so soon into my appointment

That happened in a school near me. A violent pupil assaulted yet another child and then accused a non-teaching member of staff of assault.

A teaching union rep got the entire staff together and they unanimously refused to deal with the pupil. You're not allowed to refuse to teach a pupil here, but there was nothing that the LA could do against a united staff.

The pupil was transferred to the neighbouring school.

i feel sorry for you

What an odd thing to say. Why?