East Ayrshire bucking the trend or…
TuS is grateful for this Freedom of Information request made to SNP-dominated East Ayrshire Council by Jacob Catrine.
There were 510 incidents of school violence across East Ayrshire’s 50 schools in 2016/2017. In 2017/18 this had fallen by nearly 6% to 480 incidents.
The Freedom of Information request to East Ayrshire Council was made by a ‘Jacob Citrine.’ There is a village called ‘Catrine’ in East Ayrshire. There is also a kind of jewellery called ‘Jacobs Citrine’ produced by a Jewish family called ‘Jacobs’ in Reading. I’m going no further with this, in case I tread on the Labour anti-semitism problem.
Talking-up Scotland 
Interestingly, the person who signs the request is called ‘Dan Higgins’, with Jacob Citrine being used only in the header.
Most schools have relatively few incidents with those with the greatest numbers tending to be schools which cater for children with various social emotional and communication needs. Such children sometimes have a greater tendency to react with aggression, due to the frustrations they sometimes feel. The teachers in these schools are to be praised for the way in which they react constructively to such aggression.
Another noteworthy aspect is that some mainstream schools have a notably higher rate of reported incidents than is the norm. I noted that several of these have had very condemnatory inspection reports in the past 2/3 years, with some being deemed ‘weak’ in two or three of the four areas reported on. This suggests problems within the staff of the school and in one, the Head Teacher had been replaced.
Finally, since reporting of aggressive incidents is at the discretion of the teacher making the report. Essentially, the criterion is ,”If I think that was aggression towards me, then that is what it is.” That is, it is subjectively defined. So an action by a child which most teachers would not consider violent, can be ‘violent’ because one teacher has deemed it to be so. In a school in which I taught in the 1980s, which had 50 teachers, one teacher accounted for 57% of all reported incidents.
Of course, aggressive behaviour towards teachers and others is not acceptable and these staff require support when things happen, it is important to keep things in perspective. Some children, particularly in the younger age groups are not adequately socialised o entry and can react unpredictably. However, as they get older, most acquire more socialisation. Violent incidents in secondary schools are relatively rare, when set in the context of the number of young people and the amount of time they spend in school.
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Ah, the Killie footballer or the Paisley heroin addict or……
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