Teacher speaks about lack of classroom support and abuse in schools

[HettyMeg]

Teacher from Inverurie talking about lack of support assistants. She's visibly upset and talks about the violence and abuse she's experienced. This is not acceptable!

Is this becoming more widespread? My child is nursery age at the moment so I am not personally knowledgeable about primaries but I have heard a few stories like this, very concerning.

www.facebook.com/share/r/1GMgQEDnpG/

It's down to the Local Authority. Headteachers do not have full discretion.

It's practically impossible for state schools to implement even a short, temporary exclusion these days.

My final supply stint was well over a year ago. I stopped one fight and one assault.

To be fair, the "fight" consisted of one boy who had been mercilessly provoked throwing a punch. I intervened and he accidentally connected with me instead of his tormentor.

I'd already alerted the SLT about the bullying, but nothing had been done. The fact that the lad accidentally connected with me (ironically) gave him street cred and stopped the bullying.

The assault consisted of an unknown S1 boy running into my room at the end of the period, screaming "Help me!"

He was pursued by another S1 pupil who had apparently been targeting him for some time. I managed to stop the assault and walk the assailant backwards out of the room, but was hurt in the process.

I later found out from other pupils that the victim had been attacked by the same boy previously.

In my experience, when pupils are being bullied, the victims are deprived of their education by being given permission to leave class and school early in order to give them a head start away from their assailants. It's all wrong: the mantra is that we cannot deprive the bullies of their education...but what about their victims?

This has not happened overnight - I'd say that things started to go rapidly downhill round about 2000. (I started my teaching career in '84.)

I'll add that the fact that Police Scotland often doesn't want to deal with youth crime doesn't help one iota. In my experience, it's either "We'll leave it in the hands of the school," or "Did he really understand the implications?" or - on one memorable occasion [prior to the formation of Police Scotland, to be fair] - "The statements have been lost."

I wouldn't advise any young person to become a teacher in the Central Belt. I do know some teachers who have moved to the Highlands or Islands and are much happier there.

A former colleague moved to the Highlands and was sworn at in her first week. (The only time it's ever happened to her there.) She was bemused when the HT came to her room to check that she was okay...In our previous school, the HT had told us that teachers should 'expect' to be sworn at.

Bloody hell. I think he should have been jailed for that.
His IQ seems very low. Maybe he should have been in a special school.
ETA. I know there aren't enough places. I mean there should be more special school places

Teaching is heavily unionised BUT it tends to be teachers ensuring they have legal support in the event of complaints from outside, such as from parents or pupils. It is comparatively rare for teachers to lean on their unions to 'ask for more' or request additional protections from their school, local authority or academy trust -doing so is often considered tantamount to painting a target on one's own back. Next up, a supported plan followed by a stealthy constructive dismissal or coerced resignation with a non-disclosure agreement. It's an open secret.

There was a teacher killed, and I don't think anything has really changed since then (I think it was in England, maybe in the north about a decade ago, but my point is nothing seemed to change anywhere in the UK as a result of this).

So the Scottish Government is preventing the Local Authorities from doing anything about the problem? Why? The SNP are in power for the long term. Why does the SNP leadership think that it's in their interests (even if they're not considering the interests of the country and of the children) not to take any measures to improve things? Bringing back special schools would cost money, but gradually bringing back basic discipline wouldn't, would it? What are they getting out of this situation?

The SNP get to say that they are lovely and inclusive to everyone, and that unlike in nasty 'ole England no child is ever excluded. It's entirely ideological. They just ignore all the violence, children with bladed weapons, poor educational outcomes and so on.

The SNP never ever want to admit they got things wrong. Look at the money they’re throwing at defending the right to house men in prisons even though it’s illegal and they’re definitely going to lose. What’s the sensible thing to do? To admit they got carried away and apologise, but that’s never going to happen so millions of pound of taxpayers money is wasted on futile cases instead.

It’s the same here. Some academics (see Paul Dix) with zero classroom experience sold them the lie that restorative conversations were the solution to all violence, and they went all in. They’re too far in to admit they were wrong now.

The parents are a big problem and the biggest contributor to the worst behaving. Completely blind or excuse the behaviour.

Inclusion and resilience are two words that sound nice but are used to paper over some horrible cracks. Getting beaten up daily? That’ll teach you resilience! Worried about the thug in your child’s class? That’s not very inclusive of you!

Unfortunately I agree with this.

I don’t know a lot about how it works at a policy level but my own experience is that head teachers are terrified of complaints being made by parents. There are parents of children who are attacking adults and children who blame the school! It’s nothing to do with them apparently.

It’s also just an entrenched ideology now. Any kind of ‘punishment’ or anything that looks punitive is really frowned upon as looks archaic and not trauma informed etc.

However, I think primary aged children are too young to be intrinsically motivated when there are major behaviour issues. Again it’s not all children, but children who have underlying needs and trauma and no boundaries at home and then realise there are no consequences at school are going to push the boundaries as far as they can because that’s what kids do. They need consequences.

As it’s stands- you have 5 year olds absolutely ruling the roost over a whole school !

It's down to the Local Authority.

It is the SNP/Green Scottish government who are dictating this. Their guidance to LAs make it clear never to exclude, to be ‘inclusive’ regardless of the harm to all involved. They have also imposed huge cuts in council budgets and decided that people under 25 are not able to make sensible decisions so should have ‘light touch’ punishment for crimes (and that under 12s can’t commit crimes at all). But also that 8 year old can decide to ‘change gender’ and UNCRC means teachers can persuade children to override parental rights.

The ‘light touch’ crime thing isn’t helpful either. Being charged with assault ought to have consequences. It’s what you’d expect as a parent. There are no consequences to this either. I know of a teen hospitalised after an attack by another teen to come into school the next day to find the assailant sat in their class smirking. Bring charged with assault means little more than a letter home to your mum. It’s so unacceptable!

The issue here was the bully had just returned from a temporary exclusion of a few days and therefore couldn’t be given another for a week or so (otherwise the school gets in trouble, no back to back temporary exclusions are allowed) so the bully knew they had free reign to kick the living daylights out of whoever they wanted for a full week with no comeback on them at all. So they made the most of it.

And I also recognised the school telling the victim to leave school 5 mins early to avoid the bullies giving them a beating. This happened to our child too. Why did our child have to miss 5 mins of every school day? Why could our child not walk home with their friends? Why should they suffer when they were entirely innocent? It makes no sense, isn’t equitable, makes kids feel utterly worthless and helpless.

Like I said, private school has been the making of my child because they respect children’s need to be physically safe when state school don’t, and they appreciate that in order for children to learn discipline has to be maintained and any child flouting this is removed. Why should we have to pay thousands just to get an education in Scotland though? I pay enough taxes. It should be free.

Of course, if they ever do reach the end of the line and finally get expelled, another school has to accept them.

They don’t though do they? Has this ever happened? What would you have to do if not hospitalising other school children?

It is normally called a ‘managed move’ rather than ‘expelling’. Being moved round schools definitely does happen though not frequently.

Interesting to hear. Thanks.

It's deeply depressing and feels so unsustainable.
Terrible behaviour problems at school and ever-dropping academic expectations. These are the young people who are moving into the workplace in Scotland. What kind of future does the country have?

It doesn't change the behaviour though, or protect other staff or children.

In England, there was a report in the paper the other day about managed moves. In the report it focused on a handful of well-documented assults against staff and pupils (serious assaults... knife attacks etc) and how each of those children assaulting the victims had been a 'managed move' to the new school where the incident occurred, and the lack of detail shared about the child's past history at prior schools being clear. The new school had very little scope to reject the child joining their school, and basically got left to put up with it. The LA's rationale seemed to suggest a change of scene would resolve the child's 'needs'. The result was simply that their behaviour continued (and arguably escalated), just at a different setting. Eventually, someone will always be seriously injured.

It's totally barbaric to be honest.
As an adult, this simply would not happen in the workplace at all. Yet, we're supposed to be fine with this risk to our children!?

The "all behaviour is communication", "restorative conversations" and "inclusion-first" approaches have failed children hugely. Yet governments sit and navel gaze and wonder why teenagers have such high levels of mental health crisis and the number of children with emotional-based-school-refusal is on the rise. It beggars belief.

Why is the Scottish government allowed to get away with this? Can teachers get together and organise against it, even if their unions are not prepared to stand up for them? There's strength in numbers - they can't manage everyone out. Can parents do anything? Do we just have to accept that the ideology is embedded in our schools permanently, despite the enormous and long term harm it does to children and to Scotland?

Have any parents tried suing a Local Authority for assaults on their child, or education missed, etc? Are court cases the way forward?

I would be really interested to know this too. They have a duty of care to safeguard your child. If you were in the playpark and another child started to assault yours you wouldn’t let it continue and yet schools do.

You can vote for parties other than the SNP and advise others to do so too. While they’ve him power they just don’t care. Jenny Gilruth is practically trolling teachers on this, telling them that if a child is being violent to give them a laminated piece of paper to remind them of their responsibilities to others. Laughable!

Miles Briggs and Willie Rennie have been quite strong on this issue. If it’s happening to you I’d advise contacting a non-SNP politician and the press, not to bother with the local authority at all. And be sympathetic with the teachers who are on the frontline of trying to protect children without being given the powers to do so.

I would really like to know whether any parents have tried suing for bullying / assaults that are not properly dealt with by the school (because the school isn't allowed to take action). Has anyone received legal advice on this possibility? If a child has to be pulled out of school because of relentless bullying and is sent to private school or home-schooled, that's a big financial loss to the family. In that situation, has anyone obtained legal advice before deciding what to do?

In the context of women's rights, there have been big legal cases in Scotland, including against the Scottish Government, which are slowly having some effect. Maybe it would be possible for a GoFundMe campaign to help someone to challenge the school violence situation in court.

And does anyone know of any secondary school children who have been prosecuted for school violence? If they're not being prosecuted, then why not? And would a private prosecution be possible where they have injured another child or a teacher?

The Scottish Government is getting away with this, and will continue to do so because of the number of people who will always "vote for Indy". So I think we need to look at other ways to change things.

I don't currently have a child at school, but I would certainly be willing to contribute to the cost of legal advice. We could even get legal advice from an expert (a Scottish barrister) without it being linked to an actual case - to find out what the law is in terms of responsibilities towards children at school. Then that advice could be made available on Mumsnet and elsewhere.

Any thoughts?

I know a mother of an ASN DC who is the violent one. Not seeking out victims but getting overwhelmed and lashing out - pushing/hitting/biting/throwing stuff. She has been desperate to get him support since P1. Has gone to tribunal to get him moved into a specialist setting but been turned down (specialist school full and wrong ability range). Asks any parent who approaches her to
please complain to the school or LA that their child is being put at risk. At least one TA has ended up needing medical treatment and others have left rather than work with him. She is at her wits end. At home and out and about where she can control the environment/demands he is fine. He is currently in P4 and getting bigger and stronger but there isn’t an appropriate placement for him as he is too bright for the specialist schools locally. She can’t even get speech and language therapy to help him communicate as his speech is limited.

@Bananasareberries That sounds terrible, and will only get worse as he reaches puberty and becomes much stronger. Why can't she at least access speech and language therapy for him?