Teachers in Scotland urgently require protection from extreme levels of violence that have become normalised in schools, the president of the EIS teaching union has warned.
Adam Sutcliffe made the call as he described a health and safety “ticking time bomb” that is making schools dangerous places.
He cited examples of violence and abuse involving pupils of all age groups, from a three-year-old biting a staff member to a teenager repeatedly targeting teachers with the worst racial slurs thinkable.
Violence ‘routinely ignored’
“Members in a school I recently visited told me that levels of violence and abuse that were considered unacceptable only five years ago are being routinely ignored in order to be able to simply carry on with the day,” Mr Sutcliffe told the EIS annual general meeting in Dundee today.
He described “completely and utterly intolerable” scenarios faced by teachers on a daily basis, involving “violence, aggression, misogyny, bullying, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and racism”.
Mr Sutcliffe said that “health and safety is the ticking time bomb in Scottish education that is just waiting to go boom”, adding: “What matters is that something is done and that we are protected and allowed to get on with the job that we maybe used to love but are finding it increasingly hard to do so right now.”
He also suggested several courses of action that would “force the hand” of the Scottish government and local authorities, including that EIS members should report “every single incident of violence or aggression” to their employer “at the very least…but also to the police if necessary”.
In October, figures obtained by Channel 4 News FactCheck from the Health and Safety Executive showed that Scotland had the highest rate of violent injuries to school staff in the UK.
Last July, behaviour guidance was published by the Scottish government in response to concerns that behaviour in schools was worsening and disruptive behaviour was often not dealt with adequately.
It states that consequences are “an important tool to help reinforce boundaries and expectations”, including “exclusion as a last resort”.
At the 2025 EIS AGM, then education secretary Jenny Gilruth was asked if it was “going to take a teacher being murdered at work” before the government took “real action to protect staff”.
Reduced contact time a ‘game changer’
Mr Sutcliffe also used his speech to underline the EIS’ five priorities for new education secretary Màiri McAllan, who was due to address the AGM later in the afternoon.
These are:
- Reducing class sizes to 20.
- Reducing class-contact time to 20 hours - lower than the reduction from 22.5 to 21 hours. promised by Scottish government policy.
- Restoration of early years teacher numbers back to at least 2012 levels.
- Fully funded and resourced additional support needs.
- Universal free school meals.
On an agreement struck with government over reduced class-contact time, Mr Sutcliffe said: “Back in March, we finally won on workload. And while we won’t see the impact straight away, getting Scottish government and [local authorities body] Cosla to agree the 2021 manifesto commitment was a game changer.”
But he stressed that there remained much to do on workload, and that teachers should cite the Working Time Agreement when asked to take on too much.
Mr Sutcliffe told delegates: “We are working ourselves to the bone. We are on our knees.”
The EIS AGM continues until Saturday.
