How many teachers have been attacked / threatened by students?

[feelingunsupported]

I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few days in light of the sentencing for the murder of Mrs Maguire. I've namechanged for obvious reasons but am a regular - Reasties xmas threads mainly

In my small school this year so far

• teacher's arm jammed in a door. Student made to write a note of apology

-male staff member had to deflect a punch from student. Staff member interviewed by manager for use of force. No comeback on student -student threatened to nut a teacher. Approached teacher looking like he was going to do it. Student suspended for 2 days then back into class -teachers told to fuck off / called cunts etc regularly

This should go to press. NOW.

Are there no journalists reading this thread? There's plenty of juice here to make your career!!! Those schools should be outed, the heads sacked big time.

Or does everyone just want to live in constant denial?!?

I'm not sure that's true, the shock and outrage over Ann Maguire is huge.

I think people also do care about their own DC being in this kind of environment.

I doubt anyone much will care if this information hits the press, except for their own children's safety.

After all, teachers are little Hitlers/have gold plated pensions/work short hours and have long holidays/ keep going on strike etc.

Most parents won't care if a few of them are threatened and hurt, or if the heads try to cover it up. Of course if the teacher attacked goes sick, they might have a moan about the class being covered by a supply teacher.

Captain Jane - you suggest the Guardian might be interested in campaigning on this. I have to say, as a frequent reader of the Education Guardian articles and comments, that I would seriously doubt it. This is because the solution to the problems lie primarily in either more use of traditional discipline such as regularly enforced detentions, or ultimately resorting to exclusions. These are both things that the education writers at the Guardian disapprove of, as do many of the regular commenters "below the line". Also, a proportion of the problem, particularly at primary, comes from children with certain more serious forms of SEN, and the Guardian is even less likely to be willing to highlight this as problematic.

About 6 years ago I was phoned by a journalist from a Sunday broadsheet about this very issue. She didn't use my quote but they did run the article. As this thread shows, the effect was minimal.

I think this kind of thing needs momentum and to become the flavour of the month, and that is all a matter of timing and zeitgeist as to when it takes off. It's happened with other scandals, such as the Rochdale sex abuse scandal - they suddenly become legitimised as the big news story and everyone jumps on the bandwagon that something must be done, even though they may have been bubbling under but studiously ignored for a while previously.

I predict this will happen with violence in schools – it will be a scandal and there will be policy changes - but it will take a journalist or pressure group to push it at the right moment and catch a wave of public/political concern.

If a teacher being murdered doesn't bring this up I'm not sure what will. The guardian have covered it in a data piece.

Most parents won't care if a few of them are threatened and hurt

Really? I like most of my children's teachers and it sickens me to think that any of them might be on the receiving end of this sort of attack. I can't believe I'm in a minority and I've never heard any other parents in RL talking about teachers like that.

Meant to add- I think you would have more support in the wider community than you realise.

Oh, parents are supportive all right - until they realise it's their kids doing the abusing.

No one gives a shiny shit about teachers when their pfb's school career is at stake.

As for the poster who asked what you're of schools this is happening in: I was attacked in an urban Catholic comp, a high performing grammar, and one of the most successful comps in a very leafy part of rural Devon. It happens everywhere. I just left teaching in the end, like everyone else!

Oh, and it makes me laugh when ACPO bang on about how hard their members have it. They could learn a thing or two from teachers, who have to control (and educate!) large groups of often hostile 'inmates' with nothing but voice and gesture.

Not ACPO. The prisons lot. Although ACPO could learn from teachers too, I've no doubt.

Lot of criticism of HTs on this thread...

To give the other side...the culture of fear amongst HTs is actually even worse than it is amongst teachers IMVHO. The LA can also ensure you don't get a good reference or that you are pressured into 'retiring'. And the fear of Ofsted is dreadful. Really dreadful. Of being named and shamed in the press etc.

And HTs suffer as much violence as other staff, esp. In primary schools where they are often the only person with the time/availability to manage very distressed/violent pupils.

Most HTs I know have been attacked in some way by pupils or parents. Vast pressure not to report it, from the LA, and because ofsted will see it as a weakness of leadership and management, and/or behaviour. Either of these being poorly graded in an inspection is the kiss of death to your career as a HT.

When I was a teacher (before I decided my sanity came first), I had a 15 yo throw a large metal litter bin at me because I had the temerity to ask him what he was doing outside during lessons. I've also had a wheely chair thrown at me by a pupil with identifiable SEN having a meltdown. At least my intercepting it meant it didn't hit the pupil it was supposed to hit.

+Countless incidents of swearing and abuse and inappropriate remarks, including in the street whilst with my then 5 yo to buy fish and chips. Many of the pupils were off their heads.

Meant to add- I think you would have more support in the wider community than you realise

I'm sorry, but I doubt it.

With reference to the poster above who talked about the pressure on HTs: in Primary I believe you. My experience in Secondary was that the head ran and hid: then blamed his staff. He never went near pupils if he could avoid doing so.

To some degree aggression in schools must be expected as many children are, by virtue of their development, impulsive, emotionally-charged and very primal. It is the parents, and societies' responsibility as a whole to provide moral guidance and soften those edges. Punishment is a key part of that guidance, I was a bit of a hot head at school particularly when I thought I was witness to an injustice (having a severely disabled sibling made me super sensitive I think - I became a mini vigilante trying to defend all the vulnerable kids in school but in turn getting myself into all kinds of scrapes), but with support from my parents and a very firm but fair approach at school and a normal spate of neurological developmebt I totally got my act together by about year 8 or 9.

I don't agree that exclusions are the answer but nor is blaming the poor teachers for behaviour that is about so much more than that child's school experience. There has to be a third, more creative way of dealing with this kind of behaviour.. But until then the teachers have my sympathies.

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Education/article1481252.ece

Nobody cares or believes us, and is the support we'll get if the Tories go out and labour get in.

And 'this' is...

My cousin got scratched and punched in the face by a year 2 child. Nothing was done about it, she later got criticised by the head teacher for telling a colleague about it. After the incident there was a staff meeting (scheduled) which she had to sit through despite being shaken up. She no longer teaches.

I came to add the same link: www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Education/article1481252.ece

And this is the response .... It's the teachers own fault

I felt like crying when I read it. Why does that get published yet not what's really going on?