School principals have suffered the worst levels of physical violence, threats and bullying in the history of a long-running national survey measuring wellbeing among school leaders.
Forty-eight per cent of the 2,300 principals who took part in the Australian Catholic University's (ACU) annual principal safety survey, reported experiencing or witnessing physical violence and about 54 per cent were threatened with violence.
Report author and former principal Paul Kidson said he had been inundated with stories about violence in schools.
"I've had one story that came to me of a child with some significant needs who grabbed the hair of a teacher and literally pulled a clump of hair out," he said.
Dr Kidson said the violence could include direct attacks on the principal or other staff by students or parents, or injuries sustained breaking up fights between pupils.
More than half of principals — 56 per cent — agreed or strongly agreed with a suggestion they were likely to retire early or leave the profession.
Violence, increasing administrative workloads and unreasonable demands from parents outside of school hours were contributing to high levels of stress, the report found.
Principals faced "threats" from parents over emails and text messages as well as face to face, Dr Kidson said.
"If I get an email at 11:30pm at night and then by 7:50am in the morning I've got a cranky parent on the phone saying, 'Why haven't you responded to what I sent you last night?', that's a fundamentally unreasonable expectation," he said.
"I've had principals who have had parents poke their fingers in their chest, demanding that they ought to do things, standing over them in public environments."
Principals also reported that parents were increasingly failing to believe concerns raised about their children and instead were threatening schools with litigation.
"I can tell you stories of teachers who have said, 'You know what — in the old days I would've been terrified of it, but frankly if I've got to wear a body camera like the police do, bring it on,'" Dr Kidson said.
Dr Kidson said with an existing projected 4,000-strong teacher shortage, a large number of principals resigning would be bad for the nation and its children.
Machetes, spears and knives
Principals in the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory reported the highest levels of physical violence at about 65 per cent.
"Unfortunately and sadly, at times people are faced with machetes, with spears, with knives — which is quite concerning," Northern Territory Principals Association president Robyn Thorpe said.
"I wonder how many other people in their day-to-day jobs get exposed to that level of violence."
Ms Thorpe helps her fellow principals deal with these challenges and said while more than 95 per cent of interactions with parents were good, there were some shocking exceptions.
"We can put the school into a lockdown, call the police, but sometimes in our communities the police aren't on duty so you have that feeling of a bit more vulnerability," Ms Thorpe said.
Anti-violence policies 'not working'
Ms Thorpe, who is also on the board of the Australian Secondary Principals Association (ASPA), said violent behaviour was a problem in all jurisdictions.
"Problems become magnified when an issue becomes persistent," Ms Thorpe said.
"It's accumulative, its ongoing and that's what really tips the mental health and the wellbeing of a principal over the edge."
The next highest level of violence at schools was in Western Australia where 55 per cent of principals reported experiencing physical violence.
"I am disturbed by the 2023 principal wellbeing survey results," Western Australian Secondary School Executives Association president Melissa Gillett said.
"It is simply unacceptable that over half of WA principals have been physically assaulted in the course of their work."
Like school leaders in other jurisdictions, Ms Gillett would like to see education departments better enforce policies to take a zero-tolerance approach to violence.
"Successive governments and bureaucracies will report implementing initiatives to reduce violence in schools, but the ACU results indicate that the initiatives are not working," Ms Gillett said.
In a statement to ABC News, Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said all school leaders and teachers should be safe at work.
"We are working closely with state and territory governments, principal groups, unions and experts to continue to tackle the teacher shortage crisis, which has been 10 years in the making," Mr Clare said.
"The next National School Reform Agreement we strike this year will also prioritise reforms that support teacher wellbeing and work to attract and retain more teachers."
Loading...School principals faced with machetes, spears and knives as report reveals soaring classroom violence - ABC News
Read More
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar