Teachers in a Scots council area are considering taking industrial action over alarming records of violence and aggression from pupils – and even parents. As EIS Fife survey told how 94% of teachers in the local authority area have been involved in violent and aggressive incidents in the last four years.
The survey published last week also showed 61% have been assaulted in the last four years and in almost half the schools in the area there was a daily occurrence of violent and aggressive incidents. Now new figures show 69% of teachers would consider industrial action over unacceptable pupil behaviour.
The shocking figures follow similar cases causing serious concern in Aberdeen earlier this year – even after voting for strike action in 2023 – with some teachers telling how they were traumatised, in fear for their safety and scared to go to to work because of escalating pupil violence.
Graeme Keir, EIS Fife Publicity Officer, said: “We are concerned that although this issue is acknowledged as a problem by Fife Council and the Scottish Government the resources to put things right are not being put in place.
“Teachers never take industrial action lightly and rarely have to take strike action but we cannot leave our teachers at risk. We will be looking at these figures on a school-by-school basis and working with the council to identify where more action is needed.
“We saw teachers agree the need for strike action over behaviour concerns in Aberdeen last year. We want to make sure problems in Fife are put right to avoid industrial action, but this will need an increase in investment.”
Executive Director of Education at Fife Council, Donald MacLeod, said he was taking the results of the EIS survey seriously. He said: “The EIS acknowledge that we have worked constructively with them to address these issues to date and that together we have made some progress.
“We’re far from complacent on this issue and recognise that we still have a lot of work ahead of us. We agree with the trade unions that violence and aggression in any workplace is unacceptable and schools are no exception.
“We’ll keep working until every member of staff feels safe and well supported, and able to respond effectively and confidently to the daily challenges of school life.”
He vowed the council would “continue to strengthen our approaches to both professional learning and the management of pupil behaviour across our schools”. But he added: “We recognise that this is a national issue and not unique to Fife. It requires a whole society response, including support from families and for parents and their parenting techniques.
“We’re committed to working with trade unions and staff and reflecting upon what’s already in place, so that we can respond more effectively to the challenges schools are facing. We have well developed systems for recording incidents, which we encourage all staff to use.
“Collated reports of incidents are shared with teams from across education services to ensure we provide the best support and response that we can. We have a detailed action plan in place, which is reviewed regularly, to direct and improve the approach we take which has received good buy in from staff. All education staff have access to a comprehensive professional learning package which includes de-escalation techniques and trauma informed practice.”
He said, however, that a whole system review was underway across education services. Last year the EIS revealed results of a national violence survey which showed 82.7 per cent of EIS branches reported incidences of violence and aggression every week in school.
A week later another union told how a fifth of female teachers were being assaulted several times a week by pupils. Data from the union’s recent Behaviour in Schools survey showed that 19 per cent of female teachers in Scotland had experienced physical abuse or violence from pupils several times a week in the previous 12 months, compared to three per cent of male teachers.
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