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weebecka:

 

p1j39:

Would you have been just as forgiving and understanding if someone got seriously hurt by someone with a crappy life?

No, I'm not particularly forgiving of the person who caused these attacks as she has consistently shown no insight into the consequences of her behaviour and is still being paid a huge salary to go round doing this kind of thing. When people show insight into their mistakes and learn from them it is much easier to forgive.

Actually I was referring to your attitude to forgiving children no matter their actions not HT at the time.

Children should be forgiven for their actions but only when they know of the consequences of them.  Each assault you have written about could have been escalated, by the child, into something much more violent and devestating for the victim.  How forgiving would you be then?

p1j39:

I agree that a criminal record is not appropriate in some cases but what protection did you and the other staff have?  Would you have been just as forgiving and understanding if someone got seriously hurt by someone with a crappy life?

I'm interested in suggestions that a criminal record will 'protect' other staff from further assaults, etc - or even change the pupil in question's behaviour.  Will it?

With reference to the pupil I mentioned earlier who brought a weapon into school and used it, I permanently excluded him, which is the only sanction of any note available to a headteacher.  Of course, his parents had the right to insist another school take him and they did - he was admitted to the highest performing school in the area, on in the top percentile nationally.  His behaviour got him a place that others could not have, because although the school as nominally full, his parents (the ones who had paid for a brief good enough to argue him out of a criminal record) successfully argued him a place on appeal.

So - apart from permanent exclusion, which heads can only use if they have a rock-solid case (which means rock-solid paperwork) and even then can still be overturned by governors or on appeal - what can the much-derided SLTs actually do?

and presumably its fine for a violent student to go to a PRU or some other provision...becuase the staff there will all magically be safe wont they!!!!

Lilyofthefield:

We seem to have moved away from the original question of this thread.  I am 100% in favour of the full strength of the law being used in cases of genuine serious assault against anyone, staff or pupils.  But we're not talking about swearing here, surely?

Surely it is if the verbal assualt is a regular occurence and isn't dealt with appropriately.

Sledgehammer.  Nut.

Ever wondered why the Police didn't have time to come round and catch your burglar?

I can think of some cases where being sworn at might constitute a genuine verbal assault, but a gobful from an arsy brat to a professional teacher of children who - gasp! - aren't like ours! is not one of them.

I agree that the school has every right to impose standards of behaviour that are independent from the child's family and community experience, and to uphold them.  But calling a casual "F*ck off" a verbal assault worthy of Police attention is just to diminish the seriousness of real assault and makes teachers look mincy and pathetic.  An assault worthy of arrest is the abuse of bystanders to emergency teams.  There's a difference.

Persistent flouting of any school rule should result in the eventual exclusion of the child.  Because the government has nowhere to put them (hey, apart from our school!) they they simply made it harder to exclude them.  But that doesn't mean it's a Police matter.  We have had our own dedicated Police Officer at this school for years, and apart from the occasional dramatic handcuffy drugs bust, he is as hamstrung by the meagre sanctions available as the teaching staff are.

Apart from a brief stint in the PRU or "other offsite providers", there is nowhere to send them except sideways to another school.  It doesn't cure the swearing (or indeed any other misdemeanour); it just transfers it to some different staff.