Ministers should be lobbied over concerns that “nurture principles” could be used to “mask” pupil misbehaviour or indiscipline, Scottish NASUWT delegates will tell their teaching union’s annual conference in Glasgow today.
Meanwhile, the union’s general secretary Dr Patrick Roach has told employers they cannot ”ignore or underestimate the dangers of violent pupils” after a survey of members across the UK showed that many feel behaviour policies offer them little protection.
A conference motion from NASUWT Scotland delegate Scott McGimpsey states that violence in the workplace is “one of the key challenges to emerge post-pandemic” and that teachers’ health is being “put at risk by pupil indiscipline” and employers who do not take necessary action to ensure staff safety.
The motion to be debated this afternoon - seconded by another NASUWT Scotland member, Eddie Carroll - calls for three courses of action from the union:
- “Lobby government to produce clear behaviour guidelines to ensure that nurture principles are not used as a methodology to mask abusive behaviour or indiscipline, or to massage published exclusion data”.
- “Continue to utilise ‘refusal to teach’ ballots in cases where the school or authority is not addressing ‘workplace violence’ by pupils, and robustly challenge employers who seek to undermine such legitimate industrial action”.
- “Support schools to take effective action to ensure staff safety and wellbeing by providing workplace representatives’ training on drafting behaviour policies and contributing to behaviour risk assessments”.
Such concerns are not limited to Scotland, as members from elsewhere in the UK will show. In the same session this afternoon, Wendy Exton, a teacher in England, is due to say: “Conference is appalled by the numbers of teachers experiencing physical and verbal assaults [and] that, in too many schools, assaults are seen as a normal part of teaching.”
She will also say that “many employers are failing in their statutory duties by either not completing risk assessments or seeing them as a paper exercise, including those for potentially violent pupils”, and that “many school leaders are not given sufficient guidance in the completion of risk assessments for violent pupils”.
The NASUWT is the only teaching union that operates in every part of the UK. In a survey of 8,500 members between 20-31 March, it found that 13 per cent had been physically assaulted by a pupil in the past year.
The survey also showed that 48 per cent did not feel that their school’s behaviour policy is effective or fit for purpose, and that 36 per cent of those who had experienced abuse from a pupil did not feel their employer dealt with the issue satisfactorily.
Dr Roach said: “No teacher should have to go to work expecting to suffer from physical or verbal abuse by pupils.
“Employers have a statutory duty to carry out effective risk assessments - they cannot simply choose to ignore or underestimate the dangers of violent pupils.”
He added: “Where employers do fail to protect our members from aggression and violence, we will take them on and act to support and protect our members by any means necessary.”
