Teachers are facing a wave of cyber bullying by pupils, a union congress has been told.
The warning comes from Margaret Smith, president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association.
She said: “We are only too aware of problems involving the abuse of social media networks, mobile phones, etc among pupils but far too little attention has been given to cyber bullying of teachers.
“Make no mistake, there have been truly shocking examples of abuse of teaching staff by pupils photographs taken without consent and posted on You Tube, false Facebook pages created filled with scurrilous content including explicit sexual imagery, and the use of technology generally as yet another resource to abuse and undermine teachers.
“I am convinced that the cases we hear about are the tip of the iceberg.”
Ms Smith told delegates she remains concerned about indiscipline despite figures suggesting improvements in behaviour and a reduction in the number of children being excluded from school.
“Truly appalling behaviour can be concealed by such procedures as ‘in-school exclusion’, for example, but more significant is the inconsistent approach often taken because of the political determination to reduce exclusion figures.
“It is ridiculous that teachers’ ability to teach and pupils’ ability to learn can be such a hit and miss affair, depending on what school they end up in and the support offered by that school in dealing with serious misbehaviour.”
She has called for a national consensus that greater consistency is needed in dealing with indiscipline and that threats and verbal and physical abuse of teachers cannot be tolerated.