Only two in five children in England say they always feel safe at school, according to a government survey, and teachers from across Britain have told the Guardian they have seen pupils’ behaviour deteriorate over the last two years.
Teachers said violence and abuse aimed at school staff and other students had increased alongside displays of homophobia, racism and sexism, with women in particular bearing the brunt of aggressive sexual remarks.
The findings come as authorities in Wales considered their response to Wednesday’s attack at a state school in Carmarthenshire, where a pupil has been charged with three counts of attempted murder after allegedly stabbing another pupil and two teachers. A 15-year-old boy has also been arrested after police received reports about messages on social media referring to the stabbing.
While violent incidents involving weapons in schools remain extremely rare, the survey carried out for the Department for Education (DfE) found significant differences between the views of headteachers, classroom teachers, pupils and parents over school behaviour.
Asked how often they felt safe at school, only 39% of pupils said they had felt safe every day of the previous week. In contrast, 69% of headteachers and senior staff said their school was safe every day.
Similarly, 35% of secondary school leaders said their school had been “calm and orderly” every day of the previous week, but only 16% of secondary school teachers and 13% of pupils agreed, with all responses lower than those recorded in the DfE’s 2022 survey.
The survey also revealed that parents have become less supportive of school behaviour policies, with 24% of secondary school staff saying parents disagreed with their school’s rules, compared with 20% in 2022.
Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The vast majority of pupils are well behaved, and schools remain overwhelmingly safe and positive environments. However, there has been an increase in poor behaviour among a minority of pupils, which is posing a challenge for school leaders and teachers.
“We would like to see the DfE carry out work to establish the reasons for this increase in poor behaviour, but the disruption caused by the pandemic and the ongoing difficulties in supporting pupils with mental health and special educational needs are likely playing a part.”
The survey chimed with the responses of teachers who told the Guardian of their experiences in the classroom.
One teacher from Lincolnshire, who has taught for more than 20 years, said: “The rise in aggressive and defiant behaviour is unprecedented. Pupils as young as eight using abusive language, physically threatening staff, hurling objects at fellow pupils and treating their peers and staff appallingly.
“Personally, I have found my stress levels have rocketed and [it] has led me to consider whether I can continue in my present career.”
The teacher blamed cuts in funding and the Covid pandemic for reducing the support available for the most vulnerable children. “Normally pupils with these extreme needs would be in a pupil behaviour support unit but due to cuts there are no places,” they said.
A reception class teacher from east London said: “Last year I was physically attacked by a child every single day. I was bitten, kicked, slapped, had chairs and tables thrown across the room. Sadly this behaviour is also seen, to a lesser extent, in so many children. They are starting school with very low levels of emotional regulation, not able to express their feelings appropriately, so they have constant meltdowns.
“I’m not entirely blaming Covid as it was definitely getting worse before, but the noticeable differences since then are parents don’t trust schools and don’t listen to teachers. So we try to talk to them about their child’s behaviour and they laugh it off or even say we are lying.”
A secondary school teacher from Scotland said she had seen extreme behaviour among a few students slowly becoming the norm.
“One of the biggest problems is truancy during the day: some students just refuse to go to class and try to wander around the school. The pastoral staff are so overworked and shockingly underpaid, I don’t know how or why they show up every day,” she said.
While many teachers said there had been a noticeable change in behaviour and attitudes since Covid, some were concerned that it had grown worse in the current school year. One primary school teacher said: “It was as if they all returned after the summer as different children.” A secondary school teacher in the West Midlands said: “The behaviour of children arriving from primary school is horrendous. They have not learned basic social behaviour.”
A spokesperson for the DfE said: “Good behaviour in schools is key to raising standards, which is why we are taking decisive action to ensure all schools are calm, safe and supportive environments and are providing school leaders and teachers with the tools to improve behaviour.
“Not only have we banned mobile phones in schools to reduce disruption, our £10m behaviour hubs programme aims to support up to 700 schools over three years to improve behaviour. Data from our behaviour hubs acts as a benchmark of the standards we expect so we make sure support is targeted where it is needed most.”
