Shocking behaviour in our schools

A shocking catalogue of racism, bullying, and drug and alcohol abuse in East Anglian schools can be revealed today for the first time.


The figures, published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), show that almost 3,200 youngsters were banned from schools in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire for violence, threats or verbal abuse against teachers.
And 2,000 children were given fixed-term or permanent exclusions for physically attacking their fellow pupils. Other reasons that figured in the list, which only covers secondary schools and takes in 2005/6, were sexual misconduct, theft and persistent disruptive behaviour.

The offences give a glimpse of what many students and teachers have to endure - less than a year after a groundbreaking survey by three Norfolk teaching unions lifted the lid on the abuse launched at their members every day in the county's classrooms. 

The snapshot survey recorded almost 150 incidents in a week, including racist and homophobic abuse, physical attacks and verbal attacks and threatening behaviour by parents. 

Last night Tony Mulgrew, Norfolk secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said he was not surprised by the behaviour breakdown published by the DCSF.   He said: “There's a wide range of inappropriate behaviour in schools. Children are seeing things on the news and on reality TV and copying it. “It has got to be made very plain that bullying, racist behaviour and sexism will simply not be tolerated in schools. Nobody wants to exclude children from school but you have to take the welfare of all the other children into account.”

He added: “Some of the behaviour that was rare some years ago, like verbal abuse of staff, is becoming unfortunately more common. It won't just go away. We have to analyse it and work out why children are behaving this way.”  Mr Mulgrew said some offences, including bullying and racism, were “simply not acceptable”. He said: “Schools have to make it clear to pupils and parents that they will crack down hard.”

Allan Turner, attendance and exclusions officer at Norfolk County Council said he did not believe that behaviour was becoming “more extreme”. He said the emergence of the detailed breakdown of reasons gave schools and officers the chance to analyse patterns of behaviour and intervene early in situations.  He said: “In Norfolk we are looking to try to shift towards working with youngsters in the schools rather than excluding them. It's more productive to have youngsters kept in units within schools than to take them out.“Clearly there will always be situations where it's not tenable for a child to remain in the school, but hopefully those numbers will reduce if early intervention is successful.”

The council is currently working on a countywide behaviour strategy, which will outline what is and is not acceptable and give schools guidance on how to deal with problems.

By courtesy and reproduction from the EDP News