Teaching jobs blighted by bullying

Teaching jobs blighted by bullying

Bullying is widespread in teaching and little is being done to tackle this 'appalling' treatment, teaching unions have warned. Research commissioned by NASUWT, and released last week at its annual conference, revealed a third of teachers have suffered prejudice related bullying within the last year. But because of fear about the negative impact on their career and possible reprisals, only 15 per cent of victims reported every incident that occurred. Separate research by the union ATL found a quarter of teachers had been bulled at work, with threequarters targeted by people in a position of authority. Commenting on the NASUWT findings, Chris Keates, the union's general secretary, said: 'These are disturbing findings revealing the appalling and unacceptable treatment of teachers in the workplace.' She added: 'In order to put in place effective strategies at national, local and school level to combat bullying in all its forms, a comprehensive database of incidents is needed to show the full nature and extent of the problems.' ATL general secretary, Dr Mary Bousted, said: 'It is unacceptable for any staff to be bullied by colleagues, and schools and colleges need robust policies in place to pick up any problems and deal with them promptly. It is not good enough to just tackle the symptoms; schools and colleges also need to tackle the cause of the bullying. In the case of many education staff, they are under too much pressure in their roles and this need to be addressed. Without robust policies on bullying and adequate measures to resolve the problem, staff will become demoralised and this can only have a negative impact on pupils.'

NASUWT news release. ATL news release.