http://education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=622766

Nearly half of teachers have suffered from mental illness
By Richard Garner, Education Editor
23 March 2005


Nearly half of the country's secondary school teachers have suffered mental
health problems due to worsening pupil behaviour, a survey has revealed.

The research, by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, on 300 secondary
school teachers, showed that abuse at the hands of pupils had left 46 per
cent taking antidepressants or facing long lay-offs from school through
stress.

One teacher told researchers he had been assaulted 10 times during 18 years
in the profession and had suffered two breakdowns. He said he had been on
antidepressants for more than three years as a result.

The survey also revealed that 72 per cent of teachers had considered
quitting their jobs because they were worn out by some pupils' persistent
disruptive behaviour, such as threats, swearing, locking teachers out of
classrooms, vandalising school property, letting down car tyres, stealing
keys, throwing eggs at staff and spitting at them. One in seven (14 per
cent) said they had suffered actually bodily harm from pupils.

However, in many of the cases, the school had turned a blind eye to abuse
and failed to exclude the pupils involved.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the 160,000-strong union, will raise
teachers' alarm over discipline with Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary,
when she addresses the ATL annual conference in Torquay today.

She said it was not enough to talk about "zero tolerance" for disruptive
behaviour as Ms Kelly had done. "There needs to be a reflection about what
zero tolerance means," she added.

"It should mean much better support for teachers and more pupil referral
units - 'sin-bins'. These youngsters have to go somewhere. What we can't do
as a society is leave them to roam the streets."

Yesterday the conference demanded a code of conduct to outline acceptable
pupil behaviour and called for risk assessments to be prepared on all pupils
with a history of aggression.

Doctor Bousted said: "Teaching is a highly intensive, highly stressful job.
Teachers need to understand there are forms of help available to them and
when they are feeling stressed they need to know this is not something
that's shameful and they should seek help."

Meanwhile, delegates voted unanimously to urge the Government to abandon its
plans to set up a network of 200 privately sponsored academies to replace
struggling secondary schools in inner-city areas.

Phil Baker, from Swindon, claimed they were a "Trojan Horse",
pioneering the
way for privatisation of the entire education system. He said many of the
sponsors - who included top independent schools - had little experience of
tackling pupil disruption. "Top public schools could run them [the
academies],'' he said. "The only experience they've had of managing
challenging behaviour is dealing with Hooray Henrys."

Dr Bousted said many of the academies adopted a banding system - taking 20
per cent of its pupils from each of five different ability bands. "In some
areas the academies cover, 20 per cent of the most able is hoovering up the
vast majority of able pupils in that area," she said, adding that other
schools suffered as a result.


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