Teachers say there is a ‘pupil behaviour emergency’ in schools - is the far right to blame?

• A major teaching union is calling for urgent action on pupil behaviour
• Teachers report widespread violence in the classroom, with 1 in 5 being hit or punched in the last year
• They also believe the far right movement is negatively impacting male pupils through social media
• Female teachers report experiencing more verbal abuse than men
• Meanwhile, black teachers report experiencing more regular physical abuse than white staff

Teachers say they are facing an emergency situation when it comes to pupil behaviour - coupled with a “rising tide” of misogyny and racism.

Earlier this month, members of teaching union NASUWT met in Liverpool for the union’s annual conference. Among the topics up for discussion were working conditions for teachers across the UK, with many saying they faced such extreme workloads that it could jeopardise some of the UK’s current education reforms.

But members also took the chance to call for government help on another pressing issue: teachers suffering violence and bigotry at the hands of their students. Educators needed to be better equipped for “a dangerous school landscape where pupil violence and aggression is commonplace”, the union said, as it also called for more against the “far right’s efforts to recruit children and young people”.

But just how bad is pupil behaviour really - and what does the far right have to do with it? Here’s what you need to know:

One in four teachers say they experience pupil violence at least once a term | (Image: National World/Adobe Stock)

How prevalent is pupil violence?

NASUWT’s then-general secretary Dr Patrick Roach said that pupil behaviour had long been an issue for teachers, “but recent years have seen an unprecedented surge in levels of violence and abuse in the classroom”.

“Based on our latest data, we estimate as many as 30,000 violent incidents against teachers involving pupils with a weapon in the last 12 months,” he said. “Many teachers are having to think about how they can survive in the classroom before they can begin to focus on their teaching and pupils’ learning.”

The union’s latest UK-wide Behaviour in Schools survey found that in the last year, one in five teachers reported being hit or punched by pupils, with nearly two in five (38%) being shoved or barged. Pupil aggression had become so bad, that more than half of the thousands of teachers surveyed (52%) were considering leaving the profession altogether.

Almost all (95%) teachers had experienced rudeness from pupils, with more than a quarter suffering verbal abuse several times each week. Shockingly, more than 60% of threats of assault with a weapon came from pupils of primary school age.

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What does the far right have to do with it?

Union members said they believed that the influence of far right and populist movements were negatively impacting pupils through social media, messaging apps and online gaming platforms.

The survey found that teachers thought social media was the number one cause of negative pupil behaviour. Some even directly referenced far right agitator Andrew Tate as impacting male pupils’ behaviour - leading to an increase in misogynistic abuse of female staff and pupils in schools.

Female teachers were more likely to regularly receive verbal abuse than their male counterparts over the past year, with 27.3% of female teachers reporting verbal abuse several times a week and 14.3% reporting it daily, compared to 20.4% and 9.8% respectively for male teachers.

Teachers describing themselves as from Black, Caribbean or African backgrounds were also more likely to experience regular physical abuse from pupils, with nearly three in 10 (29.6%) reporting that they suffered physical abuse several times a week. For teachers who described themselves as White, just 15.9% reported a similar experience.

“Misogyny, racism and other forms of prejudice and hatred may have attracted greater media attention of late, but it is clear from our data that these behaviours are not a recent phenomenon,” Dr Roach said.

“There is an urgent need for concerted action involving schools, colleges and other agencies to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists and to ensure that our schools and colleges are safe places for learners and for staff.”

What do teachers believe is the solution?

In NASUWT’s behaviour survey, 70% of teachers said they didn’t believe they had the resources, support or knowledge to meet the behaviour needs of all of their pupils - while 78.8% said the number of pupils who did not receive adequate support at school had increased.

More than three quarters (76%) of those surveyed said that many of the behaviour issues they were seeing could be alleviated if affected pupils were moved to specialist facilities, but these places were often scarce. Last month, the Government allocated £740 million to create 10 thousand new places for pupils with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).

Dr Roach added that the union was also calling for “the establishment of a national interagency forum on School Safety and Security”, to be led and chaired by ministers. “We are also calling on the Government to invest in properly funded services to identify and tackle the root causes of pupil violence and aggression.”

When it came to misogyny, bigotry, and the influence of the far right, teachers could not be left to deal with the problem alone, he added. “We need a multi-agency response to improve social media literacy, critical thinking skills, and to expose disinformation and false narratives. We are urging the government to lead a national effort to tackle the root causes of poverty and deprivation and keep children safe online.”

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