Pupil behaviour in Scotland is ‘worst it’s been in years’
STANDARDS of pupil behaviour are plummeting and driving teachers away from the classroom, a major conference has been told.
Delegates attending this year’s Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) congress at Crieff Hydro also warned that relentless cuts to specialist support services were making things even more unbearable.
One individual said that, in 11 years of teaching, he had never known behaviour to be as “difficult” as it is currently. “I can’t convince anybody to go into teaching right now, which is really sad at a time when we need more teachers than ever,” he added.
The concerns come after multiple reports of deteriorating pupil conduct, particularly following Covid lockdowns.
In November last year, senior figures at the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) warned there had been a rise in incidents of aggression and stressed the increase was particularly marked among P1 and P2 children. They said they knew of one staff member in the primary sector who suffered a broken jaw and damage to an eye socket after being kicked in the face by a pupil. Another individual in a different school was punched by a P2 child and had a tooth knocked out.
Further evidence of the problem emerged earlier this week when staff at Bannerman High in Glasgow threatened strikes over pupil violence and disruption. The NASUWT union said staff at the school had submitted six violent incident forms in just a few weeks since the end of the Easter holidays. The worsening trend has been interpreted by some as a sign of “distressed behaviour” and anxiety brought on by the pandemic. However, SSTA delegates insisted the issue was a concern long before Covid and criticised what they described as the persistent tendency of bosses to blame teachers when things go wrong in the classroom.
They also unanimously backed a motion calling for an “urgent review of behaviour support and management in schools” to “identify and fund additional resources”.
But Kirsten Herbst-Gray, who proposed the motion, told congress: “Very often schools do not have the resources, human and others, to deal with challenging behaviour towards staff and among pupils.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Violence is never acceptable and the safety of pupils and staff at school is paramount. We advocate an approach for schools and local authorities to work with pupils on the underlying reasons behind this behaviour.”