School support staff are facing “unacceptable” levels of violence, a Scottish education minister has admitted.
The comments from Graeme Day came after MSPs heard “shocking” evidence of pupil behaviour that support staff are dealing with.
Today in the Scottish Parliament, Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy asked what plans the Scottish government had to review the experience of support staff in schools.
Mr Dey - the minister for higher and further education and veterans - said that the longitudinal Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR), which last reported in 2023, includes the experience of support staff.
He also pointed to Education Scotland’s role in leading the pupil support staff engagement programme, which - again in 2023 - gathered the views of 2,500 support staff on issues including workforce development and deployment.
‘Part of the job to expect violence’
However, Ms Duncan-Glancy argued that this was not good enough.
She said: “I hosted a round table with support staff in Parliament last month, and their experience was shocking: some had lifelong scars, some experienced misogynistic abuse and others were going to work wearing panic alarms.
“For most, it has become part of the job to expect violence.”
She added: “However, they do not get the support or information that they need to address the issue or help their young people. That is completely unacceptable.”
She disputed the assertion in the Scottish government’s Additional Support for Learning Action Plan that a review of how teachers and support staff roles interact is “complete”.
“That is not reflected in reality - support staff say that they do not get access to the same information that all staff get - nor is it reflected in the conclusion that Audit Scotland came to. Does the minister really think that the work on support staff is done?”
Mr Dey replied that the “seriousness” of findings by the GMB and Unison unions showed “self-evidently it is not”.
He added: “When that work is linked to our own research, it shows that there remain issues of unacceptable behaviour to which support staff are exposed.”
‘Unacceptable problem’
There have long been concerns that support staff bear the brunt of violent behaviour in schools.
In 2023, BISSR found a “notable increase” since its previous 2016 report in primary school support staff reporting the negative impact of verbal abuse and physical violence.
The report stated: “Support staff were more likely than teachers to report that serious disruptive behaviours...have the greatest negative impact on staff experience.”
Mr Dey said that the first priority of education secretary Jenny Gilruth after the latest BISSR report’s publication in November 2023 was to “provide £900,000 of funding to local authorities to procure and provide professional learning for the support staff workforce, to improve skill levels and respond to distressed behaviour in school”.
He said that Ms Duncan-Glancy was “correct that there is an unacceptable problem”, and that “we absolutely recognise the value of the role that support staff play in supporting learners, particularly the most vulnerable”.
Mr Dey highlighted that, in the recent Scottish Budget, the government had “prioritised an additional £29 million for local and national programmes to support the recruitment and retention of the additional support needs workforce”.
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