Classroom_Incidents_and_Assaults.

While reading the newspapers I came across quite some articles about education. A lot of those articles were about teachers being assaulted by students. I wanted to learn more about the situations and backgrounds, and how these situations were dealt with. I studied articles from The Independent and The Daily Mail. A recent article in The Independent, 29 March 2013, mentions an increase of twenty-five per cent more damage claims by teachers that were involved in student assaults. Compensation deals made by the three biggest teachers’ organisations are added together, and the figure is likely to exceed thirty million pounds. All assaults caused these teachers physical and emotional injuries, and in most cases these people cannot continue in their chosen career. Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said: “It is clear from these cases that if employers followed good employment and health and safety practice then teachers have had to face these dramatic events and there wouldn’t have been the costs of millions of pounds to taxpayers.” The article from the Daily Mail of May 18th 2010 reports about the trail against art teacher Lynda May. She had to face trial because of an accidental minor injury to a student’s thumb. The given background information states that this teacher had to face assaults on a daily basis. Over the years she’s been bitten, kicked, punched and pushed by students who swore at het daily. When she wanted to demonstrate that this behaviour is not getting the student anywhere by slamming a glue stick on the students table, she’d accidentally came in contact with the boys thumb, which started bleeding. She only realized he was hurt after another student told her. Upset by this she went over to the boy and apologized for what had happened. The student had cursed and sworn at her. Lynda May insists she did not deliberately caused this injury Official figures on exclusions for school assaults on teachers and students, as mentioned in the article in the Daily Mail of 31 July 2009, show an increased number of exclusions caused by teacher assaults, while the overall figure is reduced. Tory education spokesman Nick Gibb says there is a serious problem with discipline and poor behaviour in English schools. Liberal Democrat schools spokesman David Laws thinks government has been fiddling the figures by not declaring effective transfers from one school to another after a student has been expelled. Children’s Minister Dawn Primarolo is a lot more optimistic. She claims that the government has taken action, and has given teachers the power they asked for to tackle bad discipline. She says the figures show that the situation is improving over the last several years.