Pregnant special needs teacher ‘spat at, bitten and pinched’ in school
‘Books now a luxury for the poor’
CHILDREN as young as four are violently abusing staff up to “six or seven times a day”– strangling, spitting and attempting to gouge the eyes of teachers and pupils, an education conference has heard.
Teaching staff have lifted the lid on the behaviour, reported at schools across the country, which is causing anxiety and concern among staff, forcing many to change the way they dress in order to reduce the risk of being hurt.
In one case, a pregnant special educational needs co-ordinator (Senco) at a mainstream school in Shropshire described how she was repeatedly called into classrooms to restrain and deal with violent pupils.
Kelly Watkins, 38, told the NASUWT conference in Birmingham: “In the last two years behaviour in children has increased to an extremely violent level.
“As a Senco, you have that magic wand to be called to a classroom to sort out the problem. As a pregnant Senco I’m still called to the classroom.”
Speaking after delegates agreed to call on the union’s executive to consider industrial action to protect staff, Mrs Watkins, who is 18 weeks pregnant, described being “spat at, bitten and pinched” during her day-to-day work. She also told how a pupil aged nine tried to strangle her with her scarf.
BOOKS ARE becoming a luxury that many families cannot afford, teachers have heard, as they raised concerns about funding cuts on libraries.
In a debate at the National Education Union (NUT section) annual conference in Brighton, delegates raised concerns about a “shocking hammering” of library services in the last decade, warning that public libraries are often “armbands” for those in society who are struggling, and “sanity-savers” for parents who need somewhere to take their children.
One also suggested that young children are now picking up books and “swiping left”.
Jennifer Bhambri-Lyte, a delegate from North Somerset, said she had asked teacher friends for their views on libraries and received stories of “happy childhood memories, running into a library, snuggling in a corner with a book, cuddling up to mum, turning the pages, gazing at the pictures”.
She told the conference: “Kindles and iPads are wonderful things, but many of my friends talked about the smell of a book, finding tickets and receipts that someone had left as a bookmark, echoes of all the people that had been there before.
“Well, lovely, I hear you murmur, so? In a world of food banks, as my colleagues have previously talked about, books are a luxury that many families just cannot afford.
“Sharing a book brings parents together for precious moments, and I’ve taught both nursery and reception and I personally still find it disturbing to see a child pick up a book and try to swipe left.”
She also said that there are “many people out there in our society who are quite literally drowning” and that for them, “the library is a pair of armbands”.
“So when your housing benefit has been stopped, libraries have a phone you can use for free. When your landlord has put up your rent so high you can’t afford the broadband bill, a library can offer you free internet access to apply for that job, and when you simply can’t even afford to heat your own home, take your child to the library. It is warm, and you never know, you might even read a book.
“Many of my teacher friends who are parents told me their library has often been a sanity-saver, many a time when their children have worn them out, driven them up the wall, taking them to a library has rescued them. And for the homeless, a library is simply a warm place, a safe place, a refuge.” TEACHERS HAVE voted to lobby the Government to reduce the profession’s retirement age to 60.
Members of the NASUWT union, meeting for their annual conference in Birmingham, said they rejected a “work-until-youdrop culture” that they claimed was leaving hard-up teachers with little chance to retire before 68.
Proposing the motion, Jonathan Reddiford, from North Somerset, argued that the number of public libraries had fallen by almost 900 in the last 10 years, with
Presenting the motion, Candida Mellor, from North Tyneside, said: “When I first started teaching, teachers seemed to regularly talk about and take early retirement at 55 without a significant decrease in payments.
“But with the current system, the reduction in payments means early retirement is no longer viable.” more expected to go under in the near future.
“That is a shocking, shocking hammering of vital public services for many, many people,” he said.
A Department for Education spokesman said: “We want all children to have the opportunity to read widely, and earlier this year we announced a multi-million-pound fund to make sure pupils can master the basics of reading.”
At another conference, NASUWT delegates described the impact of being the victim of malicious allegations by pupils. Teachers called on the government and administrations across the UK to review their procedures for dealing with allegations. Email: Twitter: yp.newsdesk@ypn.co.uk @yorkshirepost ■ ■ Call for retirement aged 60 It’s disturbing to see a child pick up a book and try to swipe left. ■ Jennifer Bhambri-Lyte speaking at the National Education Union conference.