Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Scale of classroom violence revealed

The mounting frustration of staff towards the attitude of council employers was also evident, with accusations that serious incidents were routinely "swept under the carpet".

In one such case, a teacher who was kicked in the leg by a pupil and felt so traumatised she could not return to the class, was accused of a "dereliction of duty".

However, one teacher told the conference the issue of school violence was blown out of proportion and more support for disruptive pupils was required.

After nearly an hour of emotive debate, EIS delegates voted overwhelmingly to support a motion that pupils who carry weapons into class should be permanently excluded.

The motion comes in the wake of a rising tide of recorded violence in the classroom, with official statistics published in January showing the number of incidents where pupils were expelled in 2006-07 rose by 4% from the previous year to nearly 45,000.



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