Number of violent incidents against school staff revealed

The “concerning” statistics, obtained by the Barrhead News through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, cover both physical and verbal incidents.

The figures which are reported by the education department by financial year and not academic year reveal that between April 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, there were 376 incidents in the local authority’s schools.

During the period between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, however, this number rose dramatically to 738.

For the current period, information available from April 1, 2023 to August 31, 2023 showed a total of 270 incidents during this time.

In response to the figures, a spokesperson for the council stressed that they “take all incidents of this nature in our schools extremely seriously and have a zero-tolerance approach to violence at work.”

“It should be noted that the vast majority of such incidents relate to children and young people with significant additional support needs,” they added.

“As such we have, and continue to provide, training to support all staff to engage with pupils with challenging behaviour and to ensure pupils’ needs are met and their communications understood.

“Where such incidents do occur, they are thoroughly investigated and reflected upon and, where appropriate, action and changes in approaches for individual children takes place.

“Staff are regularly reminded to report any incidents of violence via the online reporting system to ensure all issues are properly recorded and investigated.”

Steven Larkin, the secretary of the East Renfrewshire branch of trade union UNISON said any rise is concerning and the fact the figure has almost doubled is “really concerning” but that they are continuing to work with the council to try and reduce the number of incidents.

“It’s not part of anybody’s job and we would like it to be reduced as much as possible,” he explained. 

“We are in working groups with the council to try and ensure we identify areas of concern and how we go about making sure the workplace is safe to be in.”

A spokesperson for the East Renfrewshire branch of the EIS, Scotland’s largest teaching union, added: “We continue to work with the council to reduce the number of such incidents and provide as much support as possible to our members where they do unfortunately occur.”

News of the increasing violence against staff in East Renfrewshire schools comes not long after the results of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BiSSR) was published by the Scottish Government in November.

It stated that incidents of violence, aggression and disruptive behaviours in Scotland’s schools have risen significantly over the past few years.

Over a third of staff taking part in the research said they had experienced general verbal abuse, 16% had experienced physical aggression and 11% physical violence towards themselves or other staff in the classroom in the last week.

The publication of this followed the damning findings of a major national survey of Scotland’s schools, published by the EIS the same month, which indicated that 83% of schools report incidents of violence and aggression every single week.

A total of 72% of EIS school branches indicated that incidences of violence and aggression have grown over the past four years, compared to levels prior to the Covid pandemic.

Andrea Bradley, the EIS general secretary, said: "The data in the BiSSR confirms the findings of the EIS national survey of school branches which identified a significant rise in incidents of violence and aggression in our schools over the past few years.

"The results make worrying reading for everyone involved in Scottish education, with 99% of EIS branches indicating that poor pupil behaviour, including violence and the threat of violence, is having a detrimental impact on the learning experience of pupils in our schools.

"This is against a backdrop of large class sizes, overworked teachers, rising levels of additional support needs and cuts to specialist provision."