| Mrs Ross was suspended from Sidlaw View Primary School in September last year after her husband Vic went public with allegations that staff were regularly being subjected to physical attacks.
The claims were found to be exaggerated by an independent inquiry panel but new figures show problems do exist with serious indiscipline in the city’s schools.
During the 2007/08 session, a total of 355 attacks of a physical or verbal nature were recorded in Dundee’s primary schools — an increase from 290 in the year previous.
There were fewer disruptive incidents in the secondary school sector, where 115 attacks were reported during the last year, an improvement on 2006/07 when 149 such incidents were recorded.
The type of incidents being recorded vary widely and can range from utterance of threats or use of abusive language to situations where a pupil resorts to actual violence. Danny McDonald, spokesman for the Dundee branch of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said today that any violent or abusive incident in the classroom was one too many.
He said violent incidents could have a “great impact” on their victims and he was aware of one case from a school outwith Dundee in which a teacher had her confidence “completely shattered” after being repeatedly assaulted in class.
Mr McDonald said, “It is a problem that continues to vex us and it was ourselves that argued for the collation of statistics in the first place some 10 years ago.
“I am surprised and disappointed that the Dundee primary school figures seem to have gone up so much over the past session but, on the other hand, pleased the secondary figure has gone down.
“We are due to have a meeting with the education authority some time in the near future to discuss these figures in more detail and find out the underlying trends, specifically in particular schools and with particular individuals.
“The authorities and the teaching unions have worked together in recent years to attempt to address this issue.”
A Dundee City Council education department spokesman said a no-tolerance policy was adopted to violence and threats within the city’s schools and any such incident was treated with the utmost seriousness.
He said specific guidelines were in place to deal with misbehaving in order to ensure the wider school community was not affected by the actions of a disruptive individual.
The spokesman said, “The city council condemns any attacks on teachers and we do not tolerate this sort of behaviour in Dundee schools.
“Staff should not have to put up with any threats in the classroom and action is always taken against pupils who show unacceptable behaviour.
“Teachers and school staff are encouraged to report violent incidents and the education department takes each and every one extremely seriously.
“The Managing Disruptive Behaviour guidelines are used in Dundee schools to minimise any disturbance caused to learning and teaching.
“Teachers should be allowed to get on with their work without having to face violent behaviour.” |
