EXCLUSIVE: 201 Teachers Attacked In The North East
13 June 2016, 05:00
An exclusive Capital investigation's found 201 teachers were attacked in North East schools in the last five years.
Figures we've obtained show the majority of these occurred on Teesside, with 128 cases being reported to Cleveland Police between 2011 and 2015.
There were also 73 attacks on teachers across County Durham over the same period, meanwhile Northumbria Police's figures weren't available.
Capital can also reveal there were 98 weapons found on North East pupils in schools over the last five years.
The majority were in Northumbria's force area, with 56, meanwhile 23 and 19 were found in Cleveland and Durham respectively.
Knives and blades were the most common weapons confiscated, with scissors, a baseball bat and knuckle dusters also discovered.
The Association of Lecturers and Teachers is also warning that although not all weapons found in schools will be used, they still pose a serious risk to pupils and teachers.
Alison Ryan is from the ATL:
After hearing of Capital's findings the National Union of Teachers Northern branch released this statement:
"The NUT takes a very serious view of any physical assault on members and expects that any establishment where this occurs deals with it promptly and appropriately.
We also expect the establishment to take immediate steps to put safeguards in place to ensure that this could not re-occur. Fortunately in the Northern region, such attacks are not commonplace and extremely violent attacks are even less so.
On the rare instances where such assaults have occurred we have been usually been satisfied that the establishment has responded appropriately.
We must stress, however, that should the establishment fail to take appropriate action and members feel that the response and support was not of the expected standard, we will not hesitate in supporting our members in taking appropriate and justifiable action to remedy the situation."
