School staff regularly physically hurt by pupils, report reveals
Nearly two-thirds of primary school principals report that a child has physically hurt a member of staff. One third of respondents to a new survey stated that a member of staff is physically hurt “regularly”.
The survey also found the mental health of four out of five principals has suffered as a result of the stresses involved in the job, while more than three-quarters claim their physical health has suffered.
The Inclusion Illusion survey was carried out to determine where there are shortfalls in the provision of special needs education in the primary school system.
It was conducted by the National Principals’ Forum, a lobby group set up last year, and drew on the experience of 905 principals who responded to a questionnaire, representing over one in four of all primary school principals in the State.
Among the main findings were:
“The health and wellbeing of the principals, and indeed teachers, trying to safeguard our pupils, in particular those with additional needs, already disadvantaged by a system that is unfit for purpose, is being continually exploited and eroded,” the report on the survey concludes.
“The most startling figure of all found by the survey was that 88.4% of principals agreed that they have less SET [Special Education Teaching] time under the new SET allocation model than they would have had in the older allocation model in 2012.”
The new model was introduced in 2017 and designed to be fairer to all families in need of special education support. However, the report suggests that in the vast majority of cases, there is less allocation under this model for school-going children.
The report comes at a time of heightened controversy about the provision of special needs places in the school system. Just over a quarter of respondents to the survey said that they appealed their SET allocation, but of these, only 8% were successful.
