to be shocked about the amount of suppo rt a teacher gets when they nearly kill a pupil

[2shoes]

now I know it sounds like the boy was not a good kid, but he was 14, the teacher nearly killed him, yet on here and in the media the teacher has been getting so much support.
yet a boy was nearly killed...........
(prepares to be flamed)

Of course it's not just terrible teaching and the inability to inspire some of the children.

There are a whole raft of social issues (and political decisions) which are leading to shitty situations in the schools.

Po faced,I do know he was a little shit.

He was a little shit who tried to bully someone into insanity.

They wanted to see him breakdown and film it to watch later on for there pleasure.

They're little shits because they didnt care what damage they caused to this man.

They are little shits, and they got some bloody good footage tho quite not what they expected methinks.

And finally, they are little shits because this man could have been driven to suicide, wonder if they'd have wanted to film that too ??

In fact, if I had my way, the ringleader would be forced to change it's name to 'little shit' and use it

"What is the situation for a teacher if he goes off work because of stress? Would he still have been paid?" That would depend probably on the type of insurance the school has. Schools have insurance to cover supply in the event of sickness - some policies have stress included, and some don't. So if the school didn't have a stress cover policy there's a chance he might not have been paid...

What would you call them, 2shoes?

We don't know about the child. He may have pressed the wrong buttons on that day due to someone else winding the teacher up. The teacher shouldn't have been in class and the school management shouldn't have pushed him into that situation.

I find it very hard to garner any sympathy for the boy. Pofaced - I know he's a little shit because I've read the court reports.

I always find it really bizarre when the MN jury decide to challenge the decision of a jury that has come to a verdict based on listening to all the evidence on both sides. I tend to assume that our legal system delivers justice more often than not. It's rather worrying that so many MNers have so little faith in it

ASecret
With genuine respect can I just say you are making the mistake of believeing that the way in which you experienced your depression will be universal when that simply isn't so.

At the point of my worst depression I contemplated killing my self and my youngest son - something that fills me with horror now.
But at the time my illness made it logical and reasonable.

NO ONE can possibly try to apply rational parameters to a person who is genuinely in the middle of a breakdown.

Just because what he did seems unreasonable to you does not mean it was beyond the realms of his symptoms.
Menatl health issues are not all the same

asecret I think if this man felt he could have walked away, he would have, that's my take on it. For many many reasons people feel trapped; for instance, I couldn't just 'quit my job' - not without this meaning our house being re-possessed, us going bankrupt due to being unable to service our debts.

Yes I would rather even that, than staying if it meant me beating someone - however the point I think is that this man was driven mad and not thinking straight.

We can assume this because as I say, the jury have heard all the evidence; and because of their acquittal we are safe to assume that he was not at that point acting with rationality; if he had been, he'd have been convicted.

"You have no idea if the child in question is a 'little shit'. You know nothing about him at all except he probably, like many teenagers, was mouthy and
playing up in the classroom. And you think being beaten about the head with a dumbell until near death 'taught him a lesson'." We know that this child was a part of a gang who deliberately bullied this teacher and filmed it for their viewing pleasure. Or does that count as part of your understanding normal teenage behavior too?

I agree with the jury's decsion but have sympathy for the child.

He was a little shit...and teachers shouldn't have to up with that crap.

You are happy to try to understand the reasons behind the teacher's appalling actions - stress, depression, goading, etc. But not happy to see the reasons behind the children's. Children are brutalized in the current secondary system. They are despised and their potential ignored. Of course there are fantastic individual teachers but so often they are so stressed and put upon by the system they end up hating the children they teach. What makes the children act like this in the classroom? You think they are 'just like that' ? They have been massively let down.

I worked in a school where a teacher reacted differently after years of goading and intially mild MH issues. He hung himself instead of coming in one day, it didn't even make the local paper. Teachers are human and have snapping points like any other human, it doesn't make it right, but it's a long way from pre-meditated cold-blooded attempted murder too.

It's not a case of just blame the children though, I think we need to realise the extent of bullying that goes on in teaching as a professional and how people can be pushed to the edge. I have worked in a school with huge behavioural problems plus pressure from above and I must admit it affected my mental state hugely. Luckily I was financially able to quit the school and seek work elsewhere.

A quick google shows many other teachers have made the news for the same sad reason as the teacher I knew. Is it more a case of there being something wrong with the profession on some level?:

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article232595.ece

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi /education/704323.stm

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-495645/Popular-teacher-committed-su icide-bullied-Ofsted-report.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/teach er-pushed-to-suicide-by-huge-workload-704338.html

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/6 4/64125bullyingclaimsofsuicideteacher.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253486/ Teacher-killed-boyfriend-post-naked-pictures-Facebook.html

www.iwcp.co.uk/news/news/suicid erisk-teacher-was-treated-in-casual-manner-31307.aspx

www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Bristol -teacher-s-suicide-cheating-claim/article-1556039-detail/article.html

I agree with you, 2shoes. I think it's unfair the way a picture is being painted of the boy's bad behaviour causing the teacher to flip, almost as if his attempt to bash the boy's brains out was quite understandable/acceptable in the circumstances.

I particularly dislike the attempt of the NASUWT union to try and harness this case to their campaign to highlight the difficult behaviour some of their members have to contend with from children. While that is a pertinent issue generally, this case is about someone who was unstable and simply should not have been in the classroom. It's interesting that he was not so unstable as to be detained under the mental health act or to plead disturbance in the balance of his mind as a defence, however, so it's unclear whether his actions can be explained simply by mental illness.

In any case, it is NOT the children's fault this happened, no matter how badly they behaved. I agree that our general view of teenagers probably doesn't help. We wouldn't accept a man beating up a woman because he'd been pushed too far by verbal goading, would we? (Actually we used to accept this quite commonly, but I do hope views are changing.) I think that it would serve no purpose for the teacher to serve any more time in jail so I am glad he's been released. I hope he can rebuild his life. However, I think someone who repeatedly smashed a heavy object into a child's head while shouting "Die, die, die," can consider themself quite lucky not to have been convicted of attempted murder, tbh. And I hope the child concerned will not sustain permanent physical and mental scars.

Thanks, Wannabe for answering my question re sick pay.

From what I understand, his wife suffers from depression and they have a DD with Aspergers. Which means that he had not just a stressful work life, but also a difficult home life. No support from his school, no support at home. It adds to the problem, imo.

Anyone read "Lord of the Flies"???????

I read it for O level and thought "surely that can't happen?" but it does.

Filming people in distress and passing it round for a "laugh" is one of the real downsides of everyone having access to film cameras in my book.

14 is old enough to know right from wrong.

It's things like this that make me think that schools should have the ability to permanently exclude disruptive pupils who are clearly not at school to learn anything.
Before he went mad and used a dumb bell (what was it doing in a class room?) the teacher would have had no power at all to curb those pupils behaviour. I think that is wrong.

The only reason I have sympathy for the child is because of the injuries he sustained. If the teacher hadn't snapped and had instead taken some kind of legal action against these children no-one would have sympathy for them.

Massively let down by who?....it's always someone elses fault isn't it...blame culture again.

I agree with strawberry cake. Unless you are lucky you can end up in a school with a senior management team who are not very supportive when you need them to be. All the teachers that I know who have left teaching have done so ultimately because of lack of support from management when they have been struggling - not because of the kids.

When i was at school in the 80s, some teachers were mercilessly bullied and humiliated. Not all, not even by the same kids - some commanded respect and tbh I don't know how they did it, but teaching is a trial by fire and if you don't have that natural command, it must be horrendous. I knew of one teacher who went mad and shut herself in a science lab and turned on all the gas taps (she was rescued). I feel so sorry for this man, he obviously lost it and was not in any way behaving in a considered way or a way he thought was acceptable.

The fact that the boy goaded him didn't mean he deserved what happened - no one does - but it's just a situation that can arise.

Exactly Skegness.

And Mme Lindt, we have no idea about the home lives of some of these children. Perhaps they have suffered tremendous misery and have had no support at all.

Shitty parents raising shitty kids are todays problem.

Here's a conversation I overheard recently :-

Mum :- get ere, ave you bin goin in that paki shop callin em names again ?

Kid :- no it was so n so, I neva said nuffink

So n so :- she did it too, she was talkin in a paki accent

Mum :- I don't care who it bloody was, theyve got the only shop round ere, n I don't wanna get grief whenever I go in there cos of you two brats.

Says it all really

The teacher has admitted to GBH, he has been acquitted of the charges of attempted murder and GBH with intent. As such, he still faces sentencing, bearing in mind the fact that he has already spent 8 months in custody.