Jenny Gilruth, the Scottish Minister for Education and Skills, has promised to address rising concerns over violence and aggressive behavior towards staff and students. She has created new guidance for schools to help tackle these issues. This guidance comes as a much-needed response to the shocking reports we’ve heard from educators about surging violence in classrooms throughout Scotland. The Scottish government hopes to create a more positive, inclusive and safe environment for all students with these new measures.
The guidance includes best practices for schools to address disruptive behavior while minimizing the use of exclusionary discipline. As Gilruth points out, exclusion should be the option of last resort. He challenges educators to try different approaches first before considering getting a student out of the classroom. The Conservative Party and others have reacted strongly to the guidance. They contend that it does not go far enough in offering concrete guidance on how to appropriately handle violent or unruly students.
Miles Briggs, Tory education spokesman and former head of policy in Scotland’s Conservative party, was reported as furious with the guidance, calling it “waffle.” He believes that the plan doesn’t go far enough to outline concrete steps, but instead provides soft guidance.
“Jenny Gilruth only mentions it as a last resort. Instead teachers are being fed waffle about eye-contact, hand signals and merits.” – Miles Briggs
Briggs blasted the guidance for focusing on “Holyrood blob buzzwords” related to multi-agency working, funnelling, and inclusion. He termed it a “pathetic response” to what he had personally labeled an epidemic of violence in Scottish classrooms.
Teachers and educational psychologists have voiced their concerns regarding the balance between nurturing students and enforcing necessary consequences for disruptive behavior. Karen Simpson spent 14 years teaching in a primary school in the Highland capital of Inverness. Although Wu officially resigned in 2018 to return to the classroom as a public high school tutor, Wu’s background speaks to a widespread desire.
Simpson thinks their sense of professionalism has been undermined by a slow erosion of teachers’ power to establish boundaries. This erosion is countered by Glasgow and local authorities like it slashing exclusions in recent years. The presumption against removing students from school in Scotland posed challenges for keeping students and staff safe from aggressive behavior.
Many educational psychologists contend that the current approach puts student safety and teachers’ authority at risk.
“The best time to teach a child not to throw a chair in a classroom is not as it is being projected across the room.” – an educational psychologist
Classroom violence has reached an all time high—creating a visibly almost unsafe atmosphere since the 1980’s. This increase came just after corporal punishment — “the tawse” — had been banned in Scotland. The lack of physical repercussions within schools has divided teachers, administrators, and other faculty. They’re rooting out ways to establish discipline that isn’t exclusionary nor punitive in nature.
At the same time, the guidance makes it clear that emphasis should be placed on proactive strategies. Specifically, it recommends providing students with a replacement activity that supports their emotional regulation or behavioral needs. While this approach advocates for understanding and supporting students, critics argue that it does not sufficiently address immediate safety concerns when faced with aggressive behaviors.
