A report, Unacceptable Pupil Behaviour, by Dr Sean Neill of Warwick University, analysed a survey of more than 2,500 primary and secondary teachers in 13 local education authorities in England and Wales. It found that 20 per cent of primary teachers reported being assaulted by pupils, while more than 80 per cent of teachers in primary and secondary schools in rural, urban and inner-city areas said that pupil behaviour had deteriorated during their time in teaching.
One teacher of under-fives quoted in the report said, 'On a weekly basis, staff experience the need to restrain one child to prevent another child being injured. On a similar timescale members of staff experience being hit, kicked or pushed by angry or distressed children.'
A female teacher who worked in a primary school said, 'I was head-butted by a five-year-old child and had my lip split open', while a female primary school teacher told of 'being kicked in the face by a seven-year-old as I assisted the head in bringing him to her office'. A supply teacher working with under-fives observed, 'My feeling generally is of a rising tide of difficult behaviour and attitude, despite some good policies in schools.' Dr Neill said that many teachers felt the children's bad behaviour was due in part to a generation of parents who had not been disciplined themselves as children and so were unable to discipline their own children.
Respondents also appeared to question whether some young children were ready for a school environment.
He said, 'Under-fives teachers tended to say that children coming to school were less able to fit in compared to earlier generations. Teachers said they felt parents did not have effective control over their children and that this was a second-generation effect. They felt some people were handing over responsibility for their children's behaviour to schools.
'Children were coming into schools unable to cope with not being the only pebble on the beach, and teachers had problems getting them to fit in and to accept the teacher's authority.'
Doug McAvoy, NUT general secretary, called on the Government to make unacceptable pupil behaviour a high priority 'if its adverse effects on recruitment and retention of teachers is to be addressed'.
