Teacher questioned over attempted murder of pupil

[Frasersmum123]

This happened near to me

heated that is interesting, as whatever my thoughts are on the situation. the teacher sounds like he should not have been teaching, I wonder how the LEA will defend this.

Feel so sorry both for the pupil and the Teacher.

Is awful for everyone concerned. I have taught in a difficult school and been attacked by pupils and found myself in tears after classes. Teaching can be very, very stressful. If you have day after day with horrid children and no back up. Someone mentioned mob mentality and it can be so threatening, I have heard of one teacher tell of someone she once worked with having a heart attack in class, and being found with books piled on top of him that the children had thrown as he fell to the floor. Awful for teachers to 'teach' in these environments and awful for pupils to have to go to these schools.

I now have a strong head, and she works us hard and my school is far from the perfect place to teach, but mostly it is a nice place to work, the truely horrid children are normally dealt with. I don't want people to be under the impression that all poor schools are anarchic, strong headteachers is the key.

The teacher should have walked away, if you have lost control you are no good in the room, I have walked out of classes before, it is pretty terrifying to be stood in front of 30 kids you are responsible for and not be able to get control.

I don't know what the lesson to be learnt from this is. Maybe we need to be more cautious when people return to work? I also think that teachers who are being bullied by the children, which seems to have been happening here needs to be dealt with more effectivly. Teachers should be able maybe in extreme situations to be able to refuse to teach a child or a class if they feel unable to.

I think lots of teachers find returning to work after sickness very difficult, I know I have. In 'normal' jobs you can often go back and take it easy for a few days, but teaching is full on and you have to be 100% all the time. If you feel vunerable often children will pick up on that and some will exploit it. They don't see you as a person always.

Could envisage 3 scenarios:
1)Teacher had a supported and gradual return to work, the support having recently been removed (least likely option imo)

2)Teacher straight back in the classroom, no medical, callous sink or swim SMT attitude. None or ineffectual SMT support to deal with unruly pupils. Blame-culture.

3)Disruptive behaviour amongst pupils common-place as to be accepted. Weak SMT.

Well aware I'm speculating but also wondering what 'truths' will emerge.

Wonderstuff, further down the thread, someone local pointed out this particular school does not have a reputation for difficult kids or discipline problems.

And it is pretty cruel to try to blame the victim for the attack. People are constantly cropping up on this thread to day 'children today, they are horrible' and give examples of teachers being assaulted. That implies that the child in this case was some sort of thug. There is NO reason to believe that is true - you can't extrapolate from 'child is attacked' to 'he must have done something to deserve it'. Well, you can, but it's faulty logic.

A very balanced and thoughtful post, Wonderstuff. I absolutely agree 100% with your point about pupils who bully teachers. Because that's exactly what some pupils do. Only a minority, but the impact that minority can have is disproportionate to the numbers - they can make a teacher's work life unbearable. We don't tolerate bullying in the workplace from employers or colleagues... it just sometimes seems that there is a different set of rules for pupils. Madness.

I also think your analysis of what contributes to this culture is spot on Wonderstuff. A good supportive Local Authority and Head Teacher is essential to cope with the pressures of teaching.

edam - I thought that the "bullying" analogy came from the reports of the chanting at the teacher in the lead up to the incident? Not that the child himself was a bully - as you say there's been nothing to indicate he was part of the group chanting at the teacher before hand.

and what evidence is there that anyone was chanting anything? Look back through the thread, you'll find one piece of unsourced speculation. Out of that, people have constructed this elaborate story demonising the child who is lying in intensive care!

edam I didn't say the child deserved it. Goes without saying that this should not have happened. I don't think anyone is victim blaming.

I do think that questions need to be asked of the school and the LEA as well as the teacher. Something has gone badly wrong and we must do everything we can to find out what exactly led to such an awful event and ensure that everything is done to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Actually recent OFSTED doesn't look good, acting head under guidence of executive head, pupils arriving with above average KS2 results leaving with below average GCSE's...

I don't think it is a case of children today are horrible, I think that the status of teachers needs to be raised and school management teams need to understand the implications of putting teachers in such stressful situations.

well I read several different news reports on-line that stated the same thing. Wasn't speculation on this thread I got it from - more like speculation from the newspapers........which I guess is all that any of us have to go on really.

As far as I have seen, none of the reputable news organisations have mentioned any chanting. Could be wrong, haven't done an exhaustive search but haven't seen any links posted to that effect.

We don't know what happened, yet. We have no idea whether it was 'a stressful situation' in the terms so many people have assumed, i.e. children ganging up on the teacher.

there are still some showing that report - however many of them now tend to "update" their stories rather than put new ones on with links to old (which of course makes for interesting discussions when details on links are changed mid debate )

Something went wrong here. We don't know the ins and outs but this teacher seems to have been under extreme stress. I think what is important - especially as so many teachers seem to have found themselves in frightning situations - is to look at the wider situation and understand how this teacher was driven to this and how we can be better at recognising potentially dangerous situations before such disaterous outcomes arise.

however oddly none of the ones I'm sure I originally read it on are showing it now.

Do these news reporters not realise that whole threads can be affected by their reports and they should write new reports - not update the old ones [hmm[ .

"look at the wider situation and understand how this teacher was driven to this"

"was driven to this"??

Does he need to accept no resonsibility himself?

Sounds as though something happened, very unusual for this sort of thing to happen.

Very sad for all concerned.

I agree withtyou comment flatcapndpearls.

we don't know what happened, so we don't know whether he was driven to this, or whether he had brain damage/mental health issues that made him behave abnormally.

on thing you can be sure of, the poor lad will now have some sort of brain damage

No actually: you can't be sure about anything. The only reliable news sources have given just the barest details: everything else is pointless speculation. However, if it does turn out to raise questions/action re: teacher stress / behaviour in schools / whatever - then it is a dialogue that needs to be had, I would think.

you can be sure of it, no one walks away from that kind of head injury without some lasting affects, epilepsy just being one of them.

for those whose whole sympathy is with the teacher:

I had one very cruel teacher who was constantly belittling me in front of the whole class telling everyone how awful my work was (I did my best but had absolutely no talent)

would I have been justified to hit her over the head with a heavy weight?

would all your sympathies have been with me?

"Does he need to accept no resonsibility himself? "

We don't know yet

i know an ex teacher (80's) who taught in a school in east end of glasgow, he'd ask the pupils to leave their weapons on his desk, for the duration of the lesson and pick them up after school.. The school had multiple pupil stabbings... one being widely known when one girl murdered another little girl "becaues her boyfriend fanced her" ... The teacher left years before this, to join the police because "he wanted a quiet life".
There is definatly a lack of respect in schools, some "children/teenagers" are unbelievably badly behaved because the know their actions have no punishment.They are to some extent "untouchable" , by schools, the parents and the law.
However , what that teacher did to the wee boy is unforgivable.Throwing a metal weight at the child and then hitting him again with it when the child had collapsed, it is attempted murder imho. I am disgusted , the teacher should be locked up for life, and his employers should be investigated as to why they let him return to work after his stroke when he's clearly unfit.
I may be wrong for thinking this, but perhaps the hooligans that torment will think twice now, because of this tradgedy.
poor wee boy was trying to help his friend .

Reputable news organisations are only giving the barest details because the teacher has been charged - it would be contempt of court to publish anything that might suggest he was guilty. Although the tabs have been progressively stretching the boundaries here for years now.

In ye olden days, when journalists were being trained, we were told there were only a set number of key facts that could be safely reported. I've never covered crime so memory is far from perfect, but it covered: suspect's name, address, age, occupation, details of charge, date of next court appearance, and brief details about the apparent crime reported in such a way that they didn't suggest guilt.