Teachers have been punched, kicked, shoved or spat at by kids in the last year, a survey by a leading union suggests today.
The alarming data from the teachers’ union NASUWT also shows a huge majority – 81% – of teachers believe kids’ behaviour has become worse. The union’s survey of almost 5,800 teachers found 84% had experienced verbal abuse or violence from pupils in the last 12 months.
Among those one in five (20%) said they had been hit or punched, 16% said they had been kicked and almost 9% said they had been spat at. Over a third – 38% – said they had been shoved or barged while 75% said they had been sworn at in the classroom over the last year.
The grim data also shows 62% of teachers experienced stress due to pupil’s aggression while over half (52%) said they had considered leaving the job altogether. Among the teachers who responded to the survey, one said: “This morning I was told to, ‘go die, I hope you die'”.
Another said: “I intervened in a class where a 5-year-old was threatening and trying to stab children and teacher with a pair of scissors.” A third teacher added: “I have had two children use a fire hydrant as a weapon. One at my head, another to my foot.”
The findings were released on the first day of NASUWT’s annual conference in Liverpool. Delegates will today debate a motion which suggests that reports of “extreme pupil indiscipline” – including incidents involving knives and other weapons – are on the rise.
General Secretary Dr Patrick Roach said: “Pupil behaviour has long been an issue for teachers, but recent years have seen an unprecedented surge in levels of violence and abuse in the classroom. Based on our latest data, we estimate as many as 30,000 violent incidents against teachers involving pupils with a weapon in the last 12 months.
“Many teachers are having to think about how they can survive in the classroom before they can begin to focus on their teaching and pupils’ learning.”
He added: “We are calling for the establishment of a national interagency forum on school safety and security that is led and chaired by ministers. We are also calling on the government to invest in properly funded services to identify and tackle the root causes of pupil violence and aggression.”
A secondary school teacher has described how she used to arrive home from the classroom “black and blue” after violence from pupils. Wendy Exton, 53, who was diagnosed with PTSD, left full-time teaching after 30 years back in 2022 after the ordeal “very nearly destroyed me”.
She told The Mirror: “An everyday occurrence was being sworn at, threatened, threatened with violence, sexual threats. It’s taken a turn for the worse because now we seem to be having more misogyny in the classrooms and weapons that we never had before.”
Asked about her personal experience, she said: “Being punched, kicked, having things thrown at you, trying to trap arms in doors. I used to go home with bruises. I used to go home black and blue from violence towards the end of my full-time teaching.”
She added: “The violence was a weekly thing. The verbal abuse was daily – continual, real derogatory verbal abuse, being called every name under the sun. Asking children basic things like ‘sit on a chair’ would result in a tirade of abuse towards you. I’m no shrinking violet – I’m tough – but it very nearly destroyed me.”
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Ms Exton said she was later diagnosed with PTSD and has had counselling to “sort of address what went on in the classroom”. “When you suffer that day in, day out, it does take its toll on you,” she said.
Ms Exton, who now works as a supply teacher and is a member of NASUWT’s national executive – said she “loved the job”. “Teaching children, seeing them learn, seeing them thrive, getting the exam results, building confidence, was the real positive for the job,” she said.
But she said her teaching experience from 2020 “took a sinister turn for the worst” after the Covid lockdowns. “Before then you used to get backchat from kids, it was run of the mill and you could handle that, ” she added. “I had to leave full-time teaching because of the continual abuse I was getting from children.”
Ms Exton, who will address the issue at NASUWT’s conference this week, wants the government to invest in support services. She said: “We’ve got a lot of children out there with mental health issues that aren’t being addressed, so more investment in that. They also need to skill leaders in dealing with these types of extreme behaviours.”
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