Figures on teacher assaults

[Corianda]

Listening to the local news today (I don’t usually) stated that a freedom of information request had divulged that 1300 public servants had been attacked at work in 2025 in the region - over 1000 of them teachers !!

This is D&Gslloway -a nice rural area.
I am just disgusted that the Gov thinks this is acceptable.

There was then a discussion about they number of primary teachers teaching in secondary schools in Aberdeen - not great.

My point is why does the SNP Gov get away with allowing this - and how badly is it affecting children’s’ futures

Well it obviously does and more than “some” or it would be closed! Councils have very little money since the Tories “austerity”, so unless your council is spectacularly stupid, a school with merely “some” pupils would be closed.

This is England though…

They are allowed to exclude.

That is just ridiculous - and IMO the root cause, in addition to parents not teaching their kids respect for authority, is teachers not being allowed to punish disruptive pupils / schools not being allowed to expel.

I'm a retired secondary school teacher. This has been going on for years - it's just easier to report now. Having said that, my experience in supply over the past few years has shown me that discipline is becoming even worse.

It used to be that the violent episodes could not be relayed to the region by a classroom teacher or Principal Teacher - only a member of the SLT could do it.

By the time I retired from my PTC post in 2018, we could report acts of violence directly to the region on an online form. (The heidies - at least in our area - could still get off with marking them as 'dealt with', but at least the notification went through to the region.)

Prior to that, I twice had a desk thrown at me (by different boys) and I can assure you that that info wasn't passed to the region.

The time that a teenage boy punched me in the stomach, the local police 'lost the statements'. That was before the SNP government told the courts to tread lightly with offenders under the age of 21, but even then - about 20 years ago - the police were avoiding writing up the paperwork on those under the age of 16.

Around the same time, a colleague was punched by a pupil in front of the entire school. The only reason the region knew about it was that the boy's parents complained to the Director of Education because the teacher had had the temerity to block the second punch.

Another pupil who wrecked my classroom one time had zero consequences - typical of their school career. This was more than 20 years ago. I'm not aware that any of their violent acts were recorded at region level.

The said pupil was recently found not guilty of culpable homicide, though there's no doubt that they were involved in an illegal activity and had been violent.

Even further back, as a young teacher I reported a pupil who wrote a fantasy in which he raped one of his teachers. I was laughed at by the boy's Guidance Teacher. No, it wasn't passed on.

That former pupil is currently in Carstairs and unlikely to leave.

Both Labour and SNP governments have been guilty of sweeping pupil violence under the carpet. However, the SNP has exacerbated by the problem by making it known that there are now few consequences if any for those under the age of 25 and by pushing the 'restorative conversation/trauma informed' narrative even more.

I finally came off the GTC register this year. I miss some aspects of teaching, but I don't miss dealing with the violence. The last time that I was in a school, I was hurt twice in one week - once stopping a fight, once stopping an assault.

The same week, a young female teacher was hurt whilst minding her business in a corridor. In another department, a pregnant PSA was hit.

The stats regarding pupil violence also include verbal violence. It’s not all physical.

What school did you work in?

Oh right, because being called a fking ct or similar is perfectly acceptable.

And it is absolutely none of your business what school people teach in.

I'll add that when I began teaching in the early '80s, it was very rare for a teacher to be sworn at and it was still possible to exclude for such an offence. (In those days, it depended on the HT.) By the time I retired from my PTC post, we had an HT who told us that teachers should 'expect' to be sworn at.

It is impossible for schools in my former region to give a permanent exclusion these days. At most - for a very serious offence - it is sometimes possible to exclude for a handful of days. It's more usual to have some form of internal exclusion where a miscreant is sent to work in a Pupil Support Base or the equivalent.

So far as I'm aware, there are still Off-Campus Units, but it's vanishingly rare for a school to find a place there. We were told that Off-Campus would only accept pupils who were 'known to the police'.

If the parents agree, a whole-school transfer sometimes happens.

Teachers are told that they cannot refuse to teach violent pupils. I do know of one case where the staff in school forced the parent and region into a whole-school transfer by banding together and refusing en masse, in spite of it not being allowed.

The fact that there are so many different unions professional associations can sometimes be a weakness. This time, it so happened that an area rep for one specific P.A. worked in the school. He called a meeting for all teachers and PSAs and there was a unanimous agreement to refuse to work with the pupil. The region couldn't do a thing about it and the whole-school transfer was agreed.

I had intended doing supply once I'd retired but didn't bother. It wasn't worth the stress. They're desperate for supply teachers but nobody's willing to risk their health t do it.

Wasn't there some nonsense a few years ago about teachers coming out of retirement to solve the staffing crisis, although that may have been in England.

Just who comes up with these crackpot ideas 😅

Thank you. I have absolutely no intention of listing my places of employment here.

Yes their behaviour is down to their parents but the responsibility for protecting staff and other pupils from these thugs is down to the Scottish government and they don’t give a shiney shit.

In theory, but in practice it’s impossible.

Is that any less bad? Are you okay with that? Sheesh!

Because there are lots of SEN kids in the class these days as the SNP are trying to say it's good for all the kids be in the same classroom instead of spending money so that SEN kids can learn in a better environment suitable for them.
Teaching is not about teaching but keeping everyone including other students safe in the classroom now.

My child’s headteacher said that their job was no longer to educate but to try to safeguard children and staff from their classmates. That was his full time job. And he wasn’t being given the powers he needed because he couldn’t permanently exclude..

When I started teaching in the '80s, we were allowed to issue lines.

At some point, we were told that we could only issue three paragraphs; a PT could issue 5 paragraphs.

By the time I retired from my permanent post, most schools in the region where I worked had banned punishment exercises; instead, teachers were expected to hold "a brief, restorative conversation".

DD is a student teacher going into her final year, her last placement was in a school in a very deprived area, lots of children with additional needs, English as a second language, really awful family backgrounds. No funding for classroom assistants. She had one lad in her p5 class who was very unpredictable and staff were scared of him. She was not physically assaulted but was verbally abused. By a 9 year old. What is he going to be like in 5 years?

Sadly I think this is the case in many schools nowadays. It used to be that you might have behaviour issues in P6/7 now it's even in nurseries.

@WearyAuldWumman we had to go on unserviceable days on restorative practices.
I think I said upthread that a colleague who was attacked by a pupil was not only expected to continue teaching him, but to have a restorative conversation with him.

I hate the way the blame is lumped on the victim too. Teachers told they’re crap teachers for being beaten up. Kids being asked what they did to provoke a violent bully into their attack. It’s gaslighting madness.

I was asked (by SACRO) to hold a restorative conversation with the teenage boy who punched me in the stomach. I refused.

He'd told the facilitator that I'd 'got in the way' when he was defending himself from a homophobic attack. The reality was that another boy had come screaming into my room whilst being chased by the attacker.

I yelled at him to stop and tried to phone for back-up, which is when he punched me right in the stomach. He then punched the two male teachers who came to my assistance. (One of the men had sat the victim in the corner and had stood in front of him.)

The violent pupil only stopped when our Home Link Officer, a retired police officer, took hold of him and whispered in his ear.

It's really frightening.
I was supervising P2 pupils lining up for their turn to shoot at basketball. One boy was continually bumping himself backwards into the boy behind. I put my hand between them to protect the one behind, perpetrator came into contact with my hand and immediately shouted, "You assaulted me". Thankfully I had a PSA nearby who saw it all.

It's the wasting of resources that got me. Kids whose behaviour and risk of allegations meant they needed 2 PSAs. How much could they have done to help other pupils.

@WearyAuldWumman your stories are horrendous and I don't know how you stuck it out.

Even further back, as a young teacher I reported a pupil who wrote a fantasy in which he raped one of his teachers. I was laughed at by the boy's Guidance Teacher. No, it wasn't passed on.
That former pupil is currently in Carstairs and unlikely to leave.

I think lack of consequences in schools is a major reason why we have young people, whether in their teens or twenties, roaming the streets with machetes, or assaulting bus drivers, or raping, or pushing kids on bikes in front of cars. They push the boundaries bit by bit, nothing happens to them, and they grow up thinking they are untouchable. And frankly, they do seem to be - your pupil is in Carstairs but every day I read of crimes like those I have listed, whose perpetrators get a warning or community sentence.

I had many wonderful pupils. When I went back to work [ETA on supply], I thought that I might be able to do a bit of good, but I only had the stamina for a couple of days a week.

The main problem is that staff are not being allowed to give meaningful consequences. Allied to that is the fact that some parents refuse to support the school. (No, I'm not talking solely about those from 'deprived' areas: some of those most entitled pupils come from 'good' middle-class homes. That was the case for the pupil I mentioned upthread, who was finally placed on a whole-school transfer: one of the parents had a legal background.)

Parents from one of the schools where I did supply actually contacted the press about their concerns. There are now schools with Community Police on the premises, but even their hands are tied.

The former pupil who was eventually placed in Carstairs got a very light sentence for his first offence: he was a teenager at the time and some kind of deal was done where he pled guilty to a lesser offence.

Upon release, he befriended his second victim. According to the newspaper reports of that trial, it was decided that he had no understanding of the impact of his actions upon others and that was why he ended up in Carstairs.

What stats? Even violent assaults aren't included in stats.