Boy gives teacher black eye, blood nose

Teachers are calling for Government action after three attacks by pupils at a Cambridge school.

On Thursday a 12-year-old boy at Cambridge Middle School punched his 48-year-old female teacher in the face, causing her head to smash into a door.

The teacher, who had earlier been subjected to verbal abuse and obscenities, suffered a swollen cheek, bleeding nose and black eye.

Two days earlier, two female teachers at the school were assaulted as they tried to protect a teenage girl being attacked by another girl in the playground.

Both alleged attackers have been suspended and police are investigating the incidents.

Principal Ross Tyson said the decile 8 school was "going through hell". "It is shocking that we should be subjected to unprovoked violent assaults like that."

A report commissioned by the New Zealand Educational Institute reveals that one in seven primary and intermediate teachers were physically assaulted by pupils last year. Mr Tyson said "scary" assaults came from both sexes at schools across the decile range.

Over the past 18 months, Wellington pupils have been kicked out of schools for a range of assaults, including flicking acid at a teacher, and knocking a teacher unconscious with one blow.

Mr Tyson said the Government needed to help schools struggling to cope with children from dysfunctional families.

"We desperately, desperately need the Government to stand up and give us a staffing component so that we can use it for counsellors or social workers in schools. We actually pay for a counsellor out of our operations grant and we shouldn't have to do that."

That position was not supported by Education Minister Chris Carter, who said the Government had already introduced a range of initiatives.

Mr Tyson said if the Government was serious about reducing attacks by pupils, it had to cut class sizes, and provide better teacher development and support networks, and funding.

- © Fairfax NZ News