Teacher questioned over attempted murder of pupil

[Frasersmum123]

This happened near to me

HerBeatitude - I totally agree with that last point. Physical and sexual assault being dealt with by the school?! For god's sake, these are criminal offences! If god forbid that ever happened to me I'd go straight to the police.

violethill admittedly I have never worked in inner city London, but I have worked in three comprehensives (in the gun capital of Britain!) serving difficult areas and I have yet to come across a school where abusive behaviour is commonplace. And, in the school in this case, it definitely isn't. This child is not an "abuser" responsible in some part for having his head beaten with a weight as this school does not allow abusive behaviour.

'Every time someone posts, ooh, I knew a teacher who was hit/kicked/pushed/whatever, there's an implication that it has some relevance to this case. Which it hasn't.'

Exactly edam.

Clemette, I am very heartened to get your opinion and insight on the matter as a teacher.

but why is it "expected" that teachers should be getting that treatment?

If a 14yr old stood on the street and randomly violently verbally attacked, physically/sexually assaulted an adult walk a stranger walking past them they wouldn't just be sent home and told not to do it again! Why is it different if it's a teacher?

Why should a teacher have to put up with shit that most parents wouldn't stand for. Many of the stories told on here I think most parents would come down on their child like a ton of bricks if they did the same to them (child to parent).

So why on earth is it acceptable for teachers to put up with it?

I'm not that old and even the slightest back-chatting to teachers was dealt with severely - I never saw anything of the ilk that happens in schools today.

Teacher-with-parent-of-an-AS-teen-hat-on.

My son is 14, 5'8 and weighs more than me.
If, in a meltdown, he yells abuse and assaults me, I have the right to restrain him, pin him, incarcerate him in his room, deny him anything but basic food, remove his possessions, even his bedroom door. Ground him for the rest of his childhood.
Can't do that to a child in school.
Assault is always wrong, but doesn't the fact that the man continued teaching with an unconscious, bleeding child in his sight sound like a man having a breakdown?

ermm 2shoes - I think the thread has moved on slightly - I thought it was now about pupil/teacher relationships and how appalling criminal (well outside of the school gates) behaviour is (or isn't) dealt with.

the thread title is the same as before.

Exactly the point I made earlier FAQ!
You wouldn't get away with swearing/spitting/shouting abuse at someone in the street. Never mind threatening or physically assaulting them! Why on earth do some people think that if you're a teacher, you're somehow fair game? Bizarre!

or it is fine for a teacher to assault a teacher!!

from what i'm hearing there is alot of support for the teacher...i feel sorry for him.

of course it is not acceptable FAQ. It is just entirely irrelevant. We have no idea about the boy's behaviour. We know he was assaulted, hit twice with a heavy weight, and may be brain damaged. The rest is unpleasant speculation about a child who is now very ill.

To clarify (again, I must have muddled head brought on by sunburn) I am not defending extreme behaviour - of course some of the things mentioned on here are completely unacceptable, but I thought we were talking about THIS case. Some children do backchat/disrupt - just as it is our job to teach those with special educational needs, it is also our job to teach those with different behavioural issues. This is inclusion and should not be used to even suggest that teachers lashing out at children demonstrating behaviour deemed to be within the "norm" is OK.

The rest of the thread is not simply unpleasant speculation. It is a discussion which has widened out as is the norm on MN.

sorrt I mant a teacher to assault a pupil
IMO all these stories about whta this or that teen did are irelevant, no one knows what the poor teen in this case did.
teens are all different you know.

clemette - the statistics do suggest that teachers are being assaulted either vebally or physically most days of the school year in some way. The unions have released some very startling facts for the past few years, as have individual LEAS. And these are the only ones that are reported outside of schools. Many more happen within schools that are not reported externally. It really is quite a big problem and not enough is being done about it.

I worked in a make prison working ith cat A and lifer prisoners. There is no way that the type of behaviour towards teachers I saw in secondary schools would have been allowed to take place in the prison. Not a chance. But in schools it is hushed up and kept in house and no one knows. It is madness.

But here - we don;t know what happened and we don't knwo what, Lots of the stuff don't add up; the reports are very contradictary. The pupil may or may not be a great lad; the teacher may or may not have been a great teacher. Who knows what caused this to happen. It will come out eventually.

But what does matter is that a hild is in hospital and hopefully he will be ok. And a man is in a police cell. Hopefully justice, in whatever form that eventually needs to be, will be done - from both sides.

Yes but as edam says every anecdote about an awful child implies some relevance to this incident. And the child is lying in intensive care fgs.

I'm not making any speculation about the boy - I have said many times in this thread, but I will repeat again for those that obviously missed it on my previous occasions.

I am not blaming the boy
I am not damning the teacher - I will reserve judgement until the case has gone to trial and we hear more about what happened and why.

It would appear that he was being taunted by a group of children in his class, he flipped (for reasons as yet unknown).

WHY - is that taunting he received considered to be "normal" for teachers to put up with? WHY are teachers supposed to "put up" with it.

This is totally aside from the after events in this awful case. Even taking this attack out of the equation it's still totally unacceptable in my view that criminal acts are allowed to be carried out by pupils in schools against teachers with no, or very little, consequence.

andMN threads always change direction and move on to other discussed linked to, even if not directly related to, the OP. That is all that has happened here. It makes interesteing conversation IMO. Some intersting things come out and are duscussed.

fine, threads take on a new direction, but you cannot complain when people go back to the original story.

oh and just to make it clear - I am NOT saying that the boy in this case did anything wrong at all.

Some of the posts on here are quite shocking and are dangerously close to blaming the boy for this attack.

Look at what we know in this case:

1. The reports now seem to suggest that this boy was intervening in an argument after the teacher had attempted to kick a girl. Therefore he offered no provocation.

1. The boy has more than one head injury (the reports now seem to suggest that the teacher threw the weight at him again while he was lying on the floor. If true, this is sick in my in opinio). This means that the teacher didn't just lash out. This was a sustained attack.

1. Further to point 2, two other pupils were injured trying to stop the attack. This again suggests that this attack was not simply a case of losing it and lashing out.

The teacher has been charged with attempted murder because it is obvious to anyone above the age of 3 that if you throw a 2kg weight at someone's head it is most probably going to kill them if it hits them.

There also seems to be evidence that this teacher shouted "People are going to die" at the start of the incident. If this is true and the pupils in the class heard it, then he has pretty much condemned himself to an attempted murder conviction.

It would be a mighty good lawyer who can persuade a jury that shouting "People are going to die" and then launching a weight twice into a persons head is not attempted murder.

I think you raise an interesting point there clemette re: the inclusion policy. Does 'the norm' need adjusting? Because, while I am all for teachers embracing the needs of children with SEN, I think some schools have become so acclimatised to pupils who are abusive, that what is accepted as 'the norm' would actually seem to many people quite extreme. I'm not saying all schools by any means. But I have friends in some schools where children with 'behavioural problems' are regularly abusive and threatening. The rights of inclusion should not trump the rights of a teacher to work in a safe environment.

Some of the posts on here are quite shocking and are dangerously close to blaming the boy for this attack.

Look at what we know in this case:

1. The reports now seem to suggest that this boy was intervening in an argument after the teacher had attempted to kick a girl. Therefore he offered no provocation.

1. The boy has more than one head injury (the reports now seem to suggest that the teacher threw the weight at him again while he was lying on the floor. If true, this is sick in my in opinion). This means that the teacher didn't just lash out. This was a sustained attack.

1. Further to point 2, two other pupils were injured trying to stop the attack. This again suggests that this attack was not simply a case of losing it and lashing out.

The teacher has been charged with attempted murder because it is obvious to anyone above the age of 3 that if you throw a 2kg weight at someone's head it is most probably going to kill them if it hits them.

There also seems to be evidence that this teacher shouted "People are going to die" at the start of the incident. If this is true and the pupils in the class heard it, then he has pretty much condemned himself to an attempted murder conviction.

It would be a mighty good lawyer who can persuade a jury that shouting "People are going to die" and then launching a 2kg weight twice into a persons head is not attempted murder.

I am not complaining about anyone reverting back to OP.

Just syaing that, as is the norm on MN threads, that they do movve on and discuss other aspects linked to topics brought up from the OP. In this case violence against treachers.

Just because this topic has been discussed on here does not mean that people think the child deserved to be assaulted in this way.

I also feel there is a sort of complacency of the sort where 'my child will never be an awful teenager as I bring my children up so well'
What if your child had severe behavioural difficulties? What if he/she pushed a teacher to snap? What if it were your child in intensive care?
Of course schools critically need more funds and support, but it is absolutely indefensible to attack a child in this manner.

And btw, my mother was a teacher in East London in the sixties. Whilst pregnant she was kicked in the stomach and told by the girl she hoped she'd lose the baby. So awful behaviour in the class room has always gone on [it is still irrelevant though]