REVEALED: NI pupil (7) tells pregnant teacher 'I'll stab your belly'
Shock level of violent attacks against schools' staff
Last updated 5th Apr 2019
A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD pupil threatened to stab a pregnant teacher at a school in Northern Ireland, it has emerged.
The incident is among a worrying trend of shockingly violent incidents being flagged up by terrified staff in schools across the province.
The Ulster Teachers’ Union is now working with the PSNI to curtain what it says are “obscene” levels of violence.
In one of the worst of the incidents, one Primary School pupil who did not want to do literacy work, Threatened to stab a pregnant teacher “in the belly”.
Jacquie White, UTU Deputy General Secretary said enough is enough.
She told the union’s centenary conference in Newcastle.
“People were shocked recently to hear that over 90 pupils in years 1-4 were suspended last year,” she said.
“The tragedy is that this was no shock to teachers who face the reality of the behaviour behind those statistics every day.
“Teachers put up with a lot before it even gets to thins stage but when a five-year-old child goes on what amounts to a rampage due to their own learning, behavioural or developmental challenges a teacher must act – for that child’s and the other children’s safety, never mind their own.
“**We’ve incidents of children in the first couple of years in school upending book shelves, sand pits, injuring other children, curling up into the foetal position and hiding under desks.**
“In such cases, we advise members to have risk assessments carried out where they fear a child’s behaviour may be a danger.”
Ms White explained many such incidents result in teachers being forced into sick leave after weeks of trying to cope with this type of behaviour with little support and fewer resources.
“Fallings budgets mean there just isn’t the support that children and teachers need but their health is too high a price to pay and yet we know in one year alone over 20,000 stress-related sick days were taken by the teachers,” she continued.
“Sadly, as more children with increasingly complex learning and behavioural challenges enter classrooms, this situation is only going to get worse.
“Teachers are crying out for help. Given the amount of time we spend with children, we are among their main care givers but without resources we can’t do our jobs properly.
“Yet as a final nail in the coffin many of these teachers are forced to return to schools where little or nothing has been done to resolve the situation which caused their illness in the first place.
“However, perhaps the greatest regret is that at the heart of these statistics, is a child who desperately needs help but whose future looks bleak unless it’s forthcoming."