Craig Whittaker – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2015-11-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that school (a) staff and (b) pupils are protected from violence in schools.

Edward Timpson

Any violence in schools is deplorable. The Department issues health and safety advice designed to help schools meet their statutory obligations. The employer in a school has the overall responsibility of ensuring that reasonable steps are taken to ensure staff and pupils are not being exposed to risks to their health and safety, including making the school secure.

We have appointed Tom Bennett, an expert in behaviour, to look at improving training for new teachers, to deal with school disruption and more widely at what needs to be done to improve behaviour in schools.

Schools should be safe and secure environments. Combined figures relating to the number of exclusions for physical assault against pupils and adults and verbal abuse/threatening behaviour against pupils and adults show a decrease for fixed period exclusions in recent years. We have given powers to schools to search pupils and confiscate inappropriate items. Schools continue to be vigilant and I expect that they will take all the necessary steps to ensure staff and pupils are appropriately protected.