Hundreds of incidents of abuse towards school staff took place in Tayside and Fife last academic year – including assaults with weapons.
Consistently high figures are feared to have “normalised” physical and verbal abuse towards teachers from pupils, says one union rep.
Dundee EIS secretary, David Baxter, says newly released figures showing incidents of physical and verbal abuse towards teachers from pupils are “far too high.”
There were 843 reported incidents of abuse towards teachers from pupils in Dundee schools last academic year, 659 in Angus schools and in Perth that figure stood at 597.
Each area recorded a decline in incidents when compared to the two previous years.
However, David says these figures are skewed by two periods of lockdowns and remote learning and continuing restrictions in schools.
He said: “The fact is there’re still numbers there, still incidents, and even through two periods of remote learning we’ve still got high numbers.”
Weapons and injury to teachers
A breakdown of the figures, gained through Freedom of Information requests, revealed there were 32 assaults on school staff from pupils with weapons in Dundee last year and 106 assaults with improvised weapons.
And there were 146 assaults on school staff by pupils which left staff in Angus injured.
Fife and Perth and Kinross councils did not reveal such levels of detail in their responses.
David, of EIS, said: “These figures are far too high. We want to see action to make these as close to zero as possible.
“The worry that we have is because these numbers are consistently high, there is a normalisation that this is part of the job but it isn’t – no one gets into teaching to be threatened by weapons or makeshift weapons.
“We need to see improvements. A teacher’s working environment is a child’s learning environment and something which affects them.”
Mike Corbett, national official for teaching union NASUWT Scotland, added that transparency when dealing with such incidents is key to maintaining best practice.
He said: “We’ve got incidents (across Scotland) where a weapon has been taken into school or stolen from a tech classroom and that information is not shared with staff.
“They can end up finding out through the back door, or working out someone has been excluded when their name disappears from the register for 10 days.
“Information needs to be shared with staff properly, otherwise it leads to a lot of anxiety.”
Mike, previously a high school teacher for 26 years, is also keen to encourage staff to report abuse saying under-reporting of incidents was an issue of concern pre-pandemic.
‘Consistently high numbers’
In the academic year of 2018-19 there were 1,160 incidents of physical or verbal abuse on school staff from pupils in Dundee, 1,006 in Angus, 1,257 in Perth and 141 in Fife.
The following year – when schools were closed for 60 of the usual 190 school days due to lockdown – the figures were 684 in Dundee, 576 in Angus, 935 in Perth and 270 in Fife.
Last academic year – when schools were again disrupted by lockdown, closing to all pupils for 30 days then a phased return over 15 days – figures rose in Dundee and Angus.
However, reported incidents in Perth dropped compared to the previous year, and Fife figures for the academic year of 2020-21 are not available until December.
‘Robust reporting and support processes’
A Dundee City Council spokesman said: “Teachers are encouraged to report incidents and we work closely with them to offer support.
“Any incidents are always are treated extremely seriously and we always investigate the circumstances around what happened.
“School staff should be able to go about their work without fear of abuse at any time.”
A spokeswoman for Perth and Kinross Council added: “The great majority of children and young people in our schools are well behaved, and as a council, any incident of violence and aggression between pupils or against school staff is not tolerated.
“The care and welfare of both our pupils and our staff are a priority for us.
“To that end, there are robust reporting and support processes in place for such circumstances – any incident reported is investigated and appropriate action taken.”
An Angus Council spokeswoman said: “Angus Council does not tolerate abuse of its staff in whatever form it takes. There are procedures in place to allow staff to report these matters whether internally or, where appropriate, to the police.”
Fife Council was also approached for comment.
