School worker gets £8,000 damages for attack injury
ASTAFF member has been awarded £8,000 in damages after being injured in an attack at a Cardiff school.
Cardiff council paid a further £19,500 in solicitors’ fees related to the case, with a bill totalling £27,583.
The payment, which was made in the 2023-24 financial year, comes as teachers and teaching unions issue repeated warnings about worsening levels of behaviour and violence in schools.
Earlier this year teachers at Pen-coedtre High in Barry walked out saying pupils used them as “punchbags”, while staff at Caldicot Secondary School in Monmouthshire took industrial action at the end of last year over what they described as “violent and aggressive behaviour”.
The £8,000 payout to a member of staff was confirmed in a Freedom of Information request to Cardiff council.
Asked for the numbers of settlements and total compensation paid to teachers or teaching assistants for injuries sustained in schools, or on school trips, and as a result of pupil violence in 2023-24, the council confirmed a settlement involving one member of staff.
News of the payout comes after people running schools in another local authority outlined their fears about what’s happening in schools.
Cardiff council confirmed: “We do not hold a breakdown per claim as the two incidents were dealt with as a single set of proceedings. Therefore, there was only one claim for damages and costs. However, we can confirm the following payments were made –
■ £8,000 – award of damages to claimant for both claims;
■ £11,072.82 – claimant solicitors’ costs for both claims;
■ £8,511.55 – own solicitors’ costs for both claims.
“One claim concerned an injury sustained from an attack, while the other claim concerned an injury sustained from restraint.”
In another incident, a member of staff at a school in Gwynedd received a £4,000 payout after being hurt when they were shunted into a gate by pupils. Gwynedd Council said it paid out a further £9,698 in legal costs settling the case in the 2023-24 financial year.
Responding to a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act on payments made as a result of attacks by pupils this year, Gwynedd Council said: “(A) claimant suffered injury when a group of pupils rushing by shunted them into the frame of a gate.”
Another council paid out more than £73,000 in 2023-24 and more than £26,000 in 2022-23 in legal costs fighting a claim for stress at work by a former teacher. The former teacher eventually dropped the claim, but the council had racked up legal fees fighting the case until then.
Responding to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, Anglesey council said it paid £26,831.50 in 2022-23 and £73,878.87 in 2023-24, saying: “Both figures relate to legal fees of defending a claim brought by a former teacher who alleged stress at work. The claimant discontinued the claim. No damages or costs were paid to the claimant.”