The Department of Education and Science has instructed schools to take steps to deal with the recent increase in violent assaults on teachers, including keeping an "incident book" and restricting access of parents to school premises.
Motions dealing with rising violence against teachers are tabled for discussion at all three teacher-union conferences this week. The Teachers' Union of Ireland and the Association of Secondary Teachers (Ireland) estimated recently that there are up to 20 instances of serious physical assault on second-level teachers every year.
The president of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Mr Tony Bates, said yesterday that although Ireland had not yet experienced anything approaching the devastating loss of life which had occurred at Dunblane in Scotland and at Jonesboro in the US, we could "no longer take it for granted that all schools are safe places today".
The TUI is anxious that bullying of teachers should also be covered by the Department's instructions. The TUI president, Ms Alice Prendergast, will tell her conference in Galway that bullying is not a "once-off losing of the head", but "consistent, offensive, humiliating behaviour" which is directed at undermining teachers by way of exclusion, boycotting or ostracisation.
The Department sent a circular on assaults against teachers and other staff to all primary schools last September. Earlier this month it issued a similar draft circular on violence towards staff in second-level schools. This states: "During the course of their work, school staff may be at risk in the form of verbal abuse, threats, assault or other forms of intimidation. This behaviour may come from pupils, parents, guardians, other staff members or visitors." It urges schools to agree and implement "procedures which would prevent or minimise violence to employees and others present in the school."
The Department states: "The practice of parents approaching classrooms directly during teaching time should be discouraged. Specifically, access to teachers should be on an `appointment only' basis where the circumstances of a meeting are likely to provoke a confrontation." Similarly, when parents and teachers have to discuss "sensitive issues", this should be done in private.
The circular recommends that in "circumstances of increased risk" staff should be trained to identify, avoid and, if necessary, calm down "potentially violent situations".
Among the steps to be taken in the event of an assault, the circular suggests recording the details in an "incident book kept for this purpose in the school". Where the assault is by a pupil, the matter should be dealt with in accordance with the school's code of discipline.
"Repeatedly, aggressive pupils should be referred, with the consent of parents/guardians, for psychological assessment in order to assess the pupil's social and emotional needs and to determine how these can be best met."
In his address to the INTO conference in Ennis this morning, the Minister for Education, Mr Martin, will pledge that within two years every primary school in the State will have at least a shared remedial teacher. Although there are already more than 1,200 remedial posts, almost 800 schools have no provision for remedial teaching, even on a shared basis.