Scotland's teachers have been attacked thousands of times in the past year, the Sunday Mail can reveal. Council staff reported more than 22,000 incidents, with the majority of attacks against teachers and classroom assistants.
The stark new figures from trade union Unison come as teachers walked out last week at Bannerman High School in Glasgow, citing violence by pupils. Staff at a school in Aberdeen voted to strike due to intimidation and violence.
Union leaders are now calling for new legislation and protection for staff. Sylvia Haughney, a pupil support worker of 24 years and the union’s senior education health and safety rep in Glasgow, said classroom staff are not given enough training on how to cope with violent children.
She said: “Members have reported incidents from swearing, spitting and kicking to sexual assault, being punched, even getting their jaw broken. When people are routinely abused at work, they absorb a lot of that and not all of it is being reported.
“It’s now at crisis point. In Scotland, we’ve had a move towards inclusion in schools, so schools which once catered for pupils with additional needs are being closed down and those pupils are being integrated into mainstream schools.
"Staff within those settings are not being given adequate training on how to cope if a child who has severe behavioural problems kicks off. Classroom support workers are often the ones who have to sit with disruptive or violent pupils and they aren’t aware of the child’s background or if there has been a risk assessment done with that child if they are known to have difficulties.
“Because there is a ‘no hands-on’ policy, in the most extreme cases a whole classroom of kids has to be evacuated to leave the one child who has gone from zero to 100 in the class as it’s the safest place for them. Nobody can do anything but wait until they calm down and it impacts the other pupils too.”
Sylvia said that children are also displaying violent behaviour at a younger age, with nursery staff being attacked more often. She said: “In Scotland, we’ve got a 20th-century teaching style but we have 21st-century children.”
One teacher, from Aberdeen, said she had been shouted at and had chairs thrown at her in class. The woman said: “It can be scary if something kicks off.” The union believes not all incidents are being recorded, with the City of Edinburgh reporting 67 compared to Glasgow’s 5115.
A Cosla spokesman said the issue was “reflective of a microcosm of society in general” and the rise was partly down to better recording of incidents by councils. The spokesman said the issue was being taken very seriously by the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools, which is co-chaired by Cosla and the Scottish Government. It meets next month to look at more support.
According to the Unison report, 22,507 violent incidents have been recorded by Scotland’s 32 councils between April 2021 and March 2022. In Aberdeen City, there were 441 incidents, with 316 (72 per cent) happening in schools and nurseries, whil 90 per cent of Aberdeenshire Council’s 477 incidents were within the education sector
.Angus Council recorded 691 violent attacks against staff, of which 600 were against education workers. South Ayrshire reported that, of their 425 incidents, 198 were attacks on teachers and 146 were against school assistants, with senior staff reporting 43 assaults on them in the last year.
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