Labour Research May 2003

Health & Safety Matters

Report reveals classroom abuse

Teachers are facing a tide of violence at work, according to teaching union NASUWT. A survey of over 300 schools in the north west of England recorded nearly a thousand incidents of abuse against teachers over a two-week period. These included 126 physical assaults, 62 sexual insults or threats and nine cases of racist verbal abuse. In one incident a teacher was stabbed in the neck with a compass three times. The union found similar results in a survey of schools in Cambridgeshire.