Hansard

Last night, I met teachers in Edinburgh at an event that was organised by the Edinburgh branch of the Educational Institute of Scotland to hear first hand about the pressures that teachers in the capital are facing in our classrooms. They spoke of emergency and crisis levels of violence and abuse, and they shared stories of teachers going off on sick leave due to stress and needing to go to accident and emergency departments for broken bones following violent incidents in their schools. Attacks on teachers and pupils in our schools are totally unacceptable and must stop.

It is clear that there is cross-party concern and, I hope, cross-party consensus on the need for more action and leadership to address the on-going increase in cases of violence against pupils and teachers. The need for action to restore positive learning environments, in which all young people and teachers are safe to learn or teach in a respected and supported setting, is a pressing issue and should be ministers’ number 1 priority.

The Scottish Conservatives have led the debate on school discipline. In March last year, we secured a debate on ending violence in schools. As today’s motion states, we welcome the work that ministers have undertaken as a result of that debate, but we need to be honest that it is not delivering the change that we need in our classrooms and schools, and it is not being delivered at any pace.

Unions have warned that there has been a failure of local authorities and Education Scotland to do anything significant to embed the national action plan on relationships and behaviour in schools. Teachers, pupils and parents are crying out for ministers to take action and to provide leadership to turn the situation around.

Today’s debate therefore presents an opportunity for a reset of our school environment, which I believe is needed. Many schools can be—and are—great learning environments for our young people, teachers and the wider community. However, it is concerning that, in too many cases and too many schools, the school environment is now becoming toxic, with students and teachers experiencing stress, bullying or other negative behaviours that impact on their mental health, wellbeing and ability to learn.

Ministers have acknowledged the rise in the incidence of violence and abuse in our schools and the fact that many cases go unreported. That is why the Scottish Conservatives want common sense policies to be brought back to our classrooms and schools. It is why we are calling for action from ministers today to develop a set of national policies to help to deliver the positive changes that we all want to see and to restore our schools to safe and welcoming learning spaces.

The key questions that teachers raised with me last night is why ministers have not commissioned any work to understand why children are exhibiting such negative behaviours and why schools are not being given the support that they need, increasingly, to address those problematic issues. Above all, teachers want ministers to be clear that they support them in saying that violence in our schools must end and that pupils and parents must be responsible for their actions.

That is why I call on ministers to set a clear national policy on what we should expect in every school—which, it is clear, is the direction that teachers want to see. That includes a ban on mobile phones in the classroom—full stop. It also includes a return to single-sex toilets and accessible toilets in all our schools, and the commissioning of a full independent review of the recording of data into incidents of attacks and violence against school staff.

We want clear guidance and support for teachers. We need the restoration of a situation in which poor behaviour in our classrooms has consequences. The majority of our well-behaved pupils in Scotland cannot continue to have their education negatively impacted. Above all, Scottish National Party ministers need to finally empower teachers to take action against disruptive pupils, knowing that ministers have their back.

Yesterday, I heard a new term that teachers are using: “lappers”. Increasingly, pupils are turning up at school and simply walking around the school or running around the corridors. The situation in our schools will only get worse if we do not get a clear and robust response from ministers. We have called for that, and they said that they would deliver it, but we have not seen action. It is totally unacceptable that more and more pupils and teachers now fear—actually fear—going to school each day. We need an end to the acts of physical and verbal abuse against them.

To date, SNP ministers have failed to put in place the measures that would allow teachers to act against those who are responsible for violence and threats in our schools. We need to acknowledge that, in recent years, the school environment has changed. We need clear national policies to be put in place to deliver for teachers and parents, and we need to ensure that we know what they can accept.