Edinburgh teachers sent home for refusing to teach ‘violent’ pupils

Eleven teachers at a school in Edinburgh have been sent home without pay after refusing to teach pupils they claim are violent and abusive.

Attacks at Kaimes School in Liberton, a special school for primary and secondary pupils with additional needs, “are understood to have included chairs and signs thrown at teachers, causing injuries with police called in on some occasions”, reports the BBC.

“They refused to teach them because they had been assaulted so many times,” a source at the school told the broadcaster, adding: “There’s just no control.”

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The Guardian reports that “the council has said staff should not be allowed to decide who they teach, but a union has accused local government of failing in its duty of care”.

The eight students are understood to have most recently been taught in a class together, with seven pupil support assistants.

“This is the first time this has ever happened in Scotland,” the BBC’s source continued. “A teacher has refused to teach one kid before but never eight.

“The assistants with the eight kids last week were just trying to keep them apart and stop them fighting. They were just running around the school swearing - it was just chaos.”

Union officials are to meet Scotland’s Education Secretary John Swinney later this week to discuss the situation, after negotiations with the council broke down.

Cover teachers, most of them from Edinburgh Council’s Additional Support for Learning Service, have been drafted in to stand in for the staff told to stay at home.

Conservative education spokesperson Councillor Callum Laidlaw told the Edinburgh Evening News this was not a “political issue”.

He added: “The way the teachers have engaged with the council and the decision to effectively boycott certain children is not the best response to the situation. I think that’s not an approach that should be encouraged. It needs to be about getting these teachers back round the table and not them singling out individual children.”

The teachers are members of the NASUWT union, which has campaigned for teachers’ rights to work in a safe environment.

Chris Keates, the union’s general secretary, said: “The teachers, and indeed other pupils at the school, have, month after month, faced violent physical assaults, a constant stream of verbal abuse and threats and malicious allegations. Equipment has been smashed and classrooms trashed.

“Rather than supporting the teachers to deal with these pupils, Edinburgh city council instead has embarked on a campaign of aggressive and punitive actions towards the teachers, simply because they have dared to stand up for what is right,” Keates added.