Attacks on teachers rise to one a day

A dramatic rise in classroom violence means that teachers are now being assaulted by pupils at the rate of one a day, according to disturbing new figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday.

A dramatic rise in classroom violence means that teachers are now being assaulted by pupils at the rate of one a day, according to disturbing new figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday.

Statistics compiled by teachers' leaders show that attacks have more than doubled in a year, some of them so serious that the victims required hospital treatment.

The findings emerged at the end of a week in which a 15-year-old boy pleaded guilty to raping a woman teacher at an inner London comprehensive as she was marking pupils' work. The woman, aged 28 and only on her second day at the school, is still unable to return to work as a result of the attack, last September.

A report by Britain's second-biggest teachers' union, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, shows the number of teachers suffering injuries at the hands of pupils rose from 45 to 104 between 2003 and 2004.

It is estimated that more than 270 serious assaults are now carried out on teachers every year.