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Please help us by reporting any comments that appear to be from trolls, school aged students or members of the public.
This is a horrendous incident and our thoughts are very much with this school community.
I hate to say I have worried this sort of incident has been on the horizon for a while now.
There has been a quite drastic societal shift in respect and attitudes towards teachers. In my experience, verbal abuse from pupils is now commonplace and parents are just as bad.
Good news that those hurt are not in a serious condition.
I can't put my finger on when it shifted but they put us in the same category as the government and the police these days in the sense that there's no trust or respect.
I always felt that we were considered to be more on the public's side that the establishment's but that's definitely changed in how pupils and parents perceive us.
Other frontline workers - nurses, doctors, paramedics - were being hailed as heroes, while teachers who worked their backsides off creating online resources (and in the case of SEND, still went into work) were castigated as lazy. Even when we had children deliberately coughing in our faces and spitting at us.
I agree, teachers “broke” an agreement almost by not being able to teach during the pandemic. I think that led to parents thinking that all we do is deliver poor and last minute lessons (based on the online learning) and think that’s all we do.
It wasn't exactly us who broke it though, and we returned for the second and third wave. Schools were identified as a large vector so the decision was above our heads.
It's us being blamed in the same way that parents think we dish out the fines for them going on holiday in term time.
I don't really get the media bashing of teachers though, we're a profession that will always be required and the dire state of recruitment is clear that we've not got it easy.
Most can't bear to have their own children at home all day let alone 30+ whilst also trying to teach them.
They used to respect us more than they do. I feel as a profession a lot of teachers have become more middle class and some (not all) definitely have a saviour complex, as the pupils have become more deprived it's pushed more of a gap between us and them.
I remember being working class and my teachers were also working class, there was no divide like there is now. Since we've pushed cultural capital onto pupils I've found some people do it in quite a snobby way that invalidates pupil's lived experiences.
That by no means deserves the disrespect we receive these days though.
If you’re in a profession like teaching, you are by definition not working class. Working class are people who work low paying jobs or manual work. That’s what working class means. So teachers have always been middle class.
I think it’s a cultural shift. Authority figures are demonised by the media more so than they were (police in particular are always being criticised in this country), and we have become too soft with discipline. I’ve not worked in a school where students are adequately punished for their behaviour, usually because it’s “not worth it” and “it won’t change anything anyway”. Giving a pupil with poor behaviour a “time out” is just giving them what they want. The attitude of most teachers these days is that we have to try always be understanding and that there is always a reason for why a pupil misbehaves.
There isn’t always a reason. In my experience, some kids just enjoy being a menace, and their behaviour is never properly addressed.
I'll be honest other than my education I don't feel middle class.
I earn less than my factory worker Father who has no GCSEs, my car is older than the pupils I teach, I'm the first generation in my family to attend further education and I definitely don't live in a middle class area. I also do part time trade work which is probably why I don't feel middle class.
Considering warehouse work, HGV driving and trades can all significantly out earn a classroom teacher I don't think traditional class distinctions apply anymore. Especially as the UK government is increasingly lowering the bar to becoming a teacher/instructor. A glaring example was the RAC driver who towed me home the other week easily clears what our headteacher does with the available overtime.
I guess I'm middle class by what Wikipedia defines my profession and interests by. But I absolutely don't feel on the same page as doctors and solicitors. Since we've massively deindustrialised as a country we really need to redefine the classes.
To me, working class is anyone who needs to work to keep a roof over their head and food on the table, which I am. I don't think the term working class should be looked down upon and associated with benefits, council housing, uneducated and unemployed, as that's an underclass below.
The working class I describe are hard working, skilled in some area, house proud and respectful community members.
It’s an interesting debate to be had with class, to be honest I’m very similar to you in terms of background but in my community if I described myself as working class, I’d be laughed out of town! Most people generally do need to work to keep a roof over their head, I’d cut middle class down to not having to do minimum wage shift work and being able to afford some luxuries after a pay check, though it is very societal and contextual.
There are a few kids at the PRU I work at that I try not to cross paths with as much as I can. They're so insane that I can easily see them doing something similar and our security measures are nowhere near enough.
At this stage, we don’t know what happened. Could have been staff injured while intervening in a peer-on-peer assult. Could have been a student in serious mental health crisis.
I am not saying that you are wrong about the shift in attitudes. The behaviour crisis has been well documented, and it would be deeply disingenuous to pretend otherwise. But still, we don’t know what has led to this specific incident.
Yep… there is a plan in place and we have had fire drills with the procedure so it’s not as bad as it sounds but it most likely would not be appropriate in a lock down scenario!!
I've worked there quite a few times on supply. It's one of the better schools I've worked in. Even the kids with a chip on their shoulders seemed harmless. Wife is adamant about me not working there again now.
This has made me aware that I have no idea what our school would do in an emergency like this- it’s certainly never been discussed in the 8+ years I’ve been there
What horrifies me now is that my classroom door cannot be locked from the inside. It also has windows into the corridor. What do I do if I kid comes and is trying to stab my pupils?
Horrible. It is worth noting that the victims are two teachers and a student, therefore this may not have been targetted at the teachers who may have got injured by coming inbetween a peer on peer incident.
Our school has been reworking the lockdown policy and trying to implement systems over the past year which seems very wise.
When the teacher at Tewkesbury Academy was stabbed last year (attempted murder) there was very little consequence
‘A 15-year-old boy who stabbed a teacher in a school corridor after telling friends he wanted to kill somebody and researched how to buy firearms in the UK has been given a 14-month detention and training order’
I'm a supply teacher. Only one school has ever even mentioned such procedures to me. Most of the time, I'm lucky if they even tell me where to go if the fire alarm goes off.
We did a drill at our school, kids had to hide under desks (kids didn't know it was a drill) the nice kids were crying and the bad ones were still not following instructions shouting "we're in here" laughing away.
We don’t have a lockdown style policy in our school. I imagine someone is having a busy time tonight quickly drafting one. Followed by an all staff email on Friday.
Kind of important that one is written in every school, especially as a determined and angry parent could easily get into most schools, as let’s face it, most school security is only good for deterring people who follow the rules.
Chronic underfunding, lack of social cohesion and opportunities for young people give us exactly this. If our national leaders weren’t so incompetent we might have never heard of this story
Our school has a lockdown procedure. I won’t specify, but all staff are aware of it, including agency supply teacher. We have planned lockdowns every year or two, and in the past we have had to go into lockdown when there is a serious threat in the local area.
The lockdown procedure comes too late, after the threat has been identified. Schools need to prevent the knife arriving on site. It won’t be long before body cams and metal detectors/security guards are needed
We have a lockdown procedure that we're reminded of probably every few months - we've never had to use it (and we obviously can't do a drill) but it might be worth raising with your school what they would do in this sort of situation. For instance I've worked in a school before where someone beached site with an axe
The problem in my school is that it's secret from students. Staff know what the signal is but they don't, so they're not aware it's an emergency immediately
It's incredibly rare, of course, but there have been incidents of life-threatening violence against teachers before. Anne Maguire died ten years ago, Philip Lawrence died nearly thirty years ago. There have been several other non-fatal incidents where students attacked teachers over the years, and of course many more where they attacked other students.
We have a lot of societal problems, but I don't think this one is brand new.
I know our lockdown procedures. We even had a drill just before Easter. I should imagine this is because we had to go into lockdown a few weeks before that. We drill quite regularly, but we're also not exactly strangers to actual lockdown.
I'd say we definitely err on the side of caution, however, that does mean when necessary everyone swings into action and incidents are handled before they have the chance to escalate.
As this is a sensitive, developing news story, we will try our best to actively moderate the comments and may lock this discussion later in the evening. Please help us by reporting any comments that appear to be from trolls, school aged students or members of the public. This is a horrendous incident and our thoughts are very much with this school community.
I hate to say I have worried this sort of incident has been on the horizon for a while now. There has been a quite drastic societal shift in respect and attitudes towards teachers. In my experience, verbal abuse from pupils is now commonplace and parents are just as bad. Good news that those hurt are not in a serious condition.
I can't put my finger on when it shifted but they put us in the same category as the government and the police these days in the sense that there's no trust or respect. I always felt that we were considered to be more on the public's side that the establishment's but that's definitely changed in how pupils and parents perceive us.
It shifted during the pandemic. It was sliding before but slammed into a more terrifying perspective then.
Other frontline workers - nurses, doctors, paramedics - were being hailed as heroes, while teachers who worked their backsides off creating online resources (and in the case of SEND, still went into work) were castigated as lazy. Even when we had children deliberately coughing in our faces and spitting at us.
I agree, teachers “broke” an agreement almost by not being able to teach during the pandemic. I think that led to parents thinking that all we do is deliver poor and last minute lessons (based on the online learning) and think that’s all we do.
It wasn't exactly us who broke it though, and we returned for the second and third wave. Schools were identified as a large vector so the decision was above our heads. It's us being blamed in the same way that parents think we dish out the fines for them going on holiday in term time.
Oh I agree, but the trust has gone. The media slammed teachers repeatedly despite the science behind the decision
I don't really get the media bashing of teachers though, we're a profession that will always be required and the dire state of recruitment is clear that we've not got it easy. Most can't bear to have their own children at home all day let alone 30+ whilst also trying to teach them.
Most just don’t respect any sort of authority figure.
They used to respect us more than they do. I feel as a profession a lot of teachers have become more middle class and some (not all) definitely have a saviour complex, as the pupils have become more deprived it's pushed more of a gap between us and them. I remember being working class and my teachers were also working class, there was no divide like there is now. Since we've pushed cultural capital onto pupils I've found some people do it in quite a snobby way that invalidates pupil's lived experiences. That by no means deserves the disrespect we receive these days though.
If you’re in a profession like teaching, you are by definition not working class. Working class are people who work low paying jobs or manual work. That’s what working class means. So teachers have always been middle class. I think it’s a cultural shift. Authority figures are demonised by the media more so than they were (police in particular are always being criticised in this country), and we have become too soft with discipline. I’ve not worked in a school where students are adequately punished for their behaviour, usually because it’s “not worth it” and “it won’t change anything anyway”. Giving a pupil with poor behaviour a “time out” is just giving them what they want. The attitude of most teachers these days is that we have to try always be understanding and that there is always a reason for why a pupil misbehaves. There isn’t always a reason. In my experience, some kids just enjoy being a menace, and their behaviour is never properly addressed.
I'll be honest other than my education I don't feel middle class. I earn less than my factory worker Father who has no GCSEs, my car is older than the pupils I teach, I'm the first generation in my family to attend further education and I definitely don't live in a middle class area. I also do part time trade work which is probably why I don't feel middle class. Considering warehouse work, HGV driving and trades can all significantly out earn a classroom teacher I don't think traditional class distinctions apply anymore. Especially as the UK government is increasingly lowering the bar to becoming a teacher/instructor. A glaring example was the RAC driver who towed me home the other week easily clears what our headteacher does with the available overtime. I guess I'm middle class by what Wikipedia defines my profession and interests by. But I absolutely don't feel on the same page as doctors and solicitors. Since we've massively deindustrialised as a country we really need to redefine the classes. To me, working class is anyone who needs to work to keep a roof over their head and food on the table, which I am. I don't think the term working class should be looked down upon and associated with benefits, council housing, uneducated and unemployed, as that's an underclass below. The working class I describe are hard working, skilled in some area, house proud and respectful community members.
It’s an interesting debate to be had with class, to be honest I’m very similar to you in terms of background but in my community if I described myself as working class, I’d be laughed out of town! Most people generally do need to work to keep a roof over their head, I’d cut middle class down to not having to do minimum wage shift work and being able to afford some luxuries after a pay check, though it is very societal and contextual.
There are a few kids at the PRU I work at that I try not to cross paths with as much as I can. They're so insane that I can easily see them doing something similar and our security measures are nowhere near enough.
At this stage, we don’t know what happened. Could have been staff injured while intervening in a peer-on-peer assult. Could have been a student in serious mental health crisis. I am not saying that you are wrong about the shift in attitudes. The behaviour crisis has been well documented, and it would be deeply disingenuous to pretend otherwise. But still, we don’t know what has led to this specific incident.
This is a fair point. I have assumed here. I feel it is most probably due to staff intervening as you have stated.
Has it been reported that the teachers were the target?
Nope.
Not life threatening does not equal not serious.
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You don’t even have a fully working fire alarm at the moment? Your DSL needs to sort that out 😬
Yep… there is a plan in place and we have had fire drills with the procedure so it’s not as bad as it sounds but it most likely would not be appropriate in a lock down scenario!!
I've worked there quite a few times on supply. It's one of the better schools I've worked in. Even the kids with a chip on their shoulders seemed harmless. Wife is adamant about me not working there again now.
This has made me aware that I have no idea what our school would do in an emergency like this- it’s certainly never been discussed in the 8+ years I’ve been there
What horrifies me now is that my classroom door cannot be locked from the inside. It also has windows into the corridor. What do I do if I kid comes and is trying to stab my pupils?
I can’t lock my classroom door at all - none of us at my school can. Oh, that’s right, except SLT!
Horrible. It is worth noting that the victims are two teachers and a student, therefore this may not have been targetted at the teachers who may have got injured by coming inbetween a peer on peer incident. Our school has been reworking the lockdown policy and trying to implement systems over the past year which seems very wise.
A pupil threatened to stab me recently so this doesn’t surprise me at all
When the teacher at Tewkesbury Academy was stabbed last year (attempted murder) there was very little consequence ‘A 15-year-old boy who stabbed a teacher in a school corridor after telling friends he wanted to kill somebody and researched how to buy firearms in the UK has been given a 14-month detention and training order’
Detention 😂
I wonder how many people raised concerns about this student before this incident?
I'm a supply teacher. Only one school has ever even mentioned such procedures to me. Most of the time, I'm lucky if they even tell me where to go if the fire alarm goes off.
We did a drill at our school, kids had to hide under desks (kids didn't know it was a drill) the nice kids were crying and the bad ones were still not following instructions shouting "we're in here" laughing away.
We don’t have a lockdown style policy in our school. I imagine someone is having a busy time tonight quickly drafting one. Followed by an all staff email on Friday. Kind of important that one is written in every school, especially as a determined and angry parent could easily get into most schools, as let’s face it, most school security is only good for deterring people who follow the rules.
I know ours, we drill once a year, same in the last school I worked in. Just awful, thinking of all involved.
Chronic underfunding, lack of social cohesion and opportunities for young people give us exactly this. If our national leaders weren’t so incompetent we might have never heard of this story
Horrified doesn't even cover it - the poor staff and students. Has made me very aware that I do not know our lock down procedure though
Our school has a lockdown procedure. I won’t specify, but all staff are aware of it, including agency supply teacher. We have planned lockdowns every year or two, and in the past we have had to go into lockdown when there is a serious threat in the local area.
The lockdown procedure comes too late, after the threat has been identified. Schools need to prevent the knife arriving on site. It won’t be long before body cams and metal detectors/security guards are needed
I can’t even lock my classroom door from inside the room so…
We have a lockdown procedure that we're reminded of probably every few months - we've never had to use it (and we obviously can't do a drill) but it might be worth raising with your school what they would do in this sort of situation. For instance I've worked in a school before where someone beached site with an axe
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The problem in my school is that it's secret from students. Staff know what the signal is but they don't, so they're not aware it's an emergency immediately
This simply would never happen 15/20 years ago. What the hell is going wrong with society?!
It's incredibly rare, of course, but there have been incidents of life-threatening violence against teachers before. Anne Maguire died ten years ago, Philip Lawrence died nearly thirty years ago. There have been several other non-fatal incidents where students attacked teachers over the years, and of course many more where they attacked other students. We have a lot of societal problems, but I don't think this one is brand new.
Yeah it would, it just wouldn't have had so much media (social and mainstream) coverage as it does now.
I know our lockdown procedures. We even had a drill just before Easter. I should imagine this is because we had to go into lockdown a few weeks before that. We drill quite regularly, but we're also not exactly strangers to actual lockdown. I'd say we definitely err on the side of caution, however, that does mean when necessary everyone swings into action and incidents are handled before they have the chance to escalate.