text: Teachers are suffering broken arms and severed fingers at the hands of violent pupils as young as six. The NASUWT union said indiscipline is a ‘significant problem’, with teachers sworn at, kicked and punched. Last year, staff at eight schools refused to teach pupils who threw chairs, brought fireworks in and threatened to slit other children’s throats. Teachers are suffering broken arms and severed fingers at the hands of violent pupils. A deputy headteacher fell and fractured her arm while trying to restrain a six-year-old boy with autism . Paul Nesbitt, NASUWT executive member for the West Midlands, said the union ‘doesn’t hesitate’ to launch so-called ‘refusal to teach’ ballots. Mr Nesbitt, who is a member of the union’s health and safety committee, told the NASUWT’s annual conference in Cardiff: ‘This year alone I have been personally involved in some refusal to teach, where at one school a six-year-old boy broke the arm of a deputy head teacher. ‘It was difficult to go in and speak to four members of staff who actually cried and broke down and were in fear of their personal safety within the classroom. ‘Most people say: ‘A six-year-old?’ But that six-year-old was able to break someone’s arm. That’s a concern.’ The woman had fallen while trying to restrain the boy, who had autism and behavioural problems, at the primary school in Walsall, West Midlands. Mr Nesbitt cited another teacher whose finger was severed by a student at a pupil referral unit in Solihull, West Midlands, a few weeks ago. He said: ‘We’ve been contacted recently where a member had to be rushed off to the local QE (Queen Elizabeth Hospital) in Birmingham to have an emergency operation to reattach the top part of her finger because one of the students had kicked the door and caught her hand and took the top off the finger.’ The revelations were made at teachers' union NASUWT’s annual conference in Cardiff today (general secretary, Chris Keates, pictured) Mr Nesbitt pointed out that under the Health and Safety At Work Act 1974, employers must make sure as far as ‘reasonably practical’ that employees are protected. He said: ‘At times, at some of the schools I visit, that is questionable. ‘As a union, we accept that most schools and colleges, remain relatively safe and secure, but we are seeing the increase of numbers of incidents within school: a minority of pupils who continue to challenge authority and behave disruptively, using threatening behaviour, abusive language and sometimes physical violence towards our members.’ He warned that some schools are ‘continually reluctant’ to impose sanctions such as exclusions because they do not want to inform their local authority or gain a ‘bad reputation’. Mr Nesbitt added: ‘In a scenario recently when I looked at a school’s behavioural system there were 1,200 behavioural issues that had been reported internally but only 12 had been reported to the authority. ‘According to the authority, that school was deemed as a good, well behaved school but we know that’s not the case.’ Dan McCarthy, NASUWT’s national executive member for the Eastern region, said a female teacher at a local primary school had been ‘kicked repeatedly by a six-year-old’. Later, the woman ‘discovered she was pregnant and the child was now punching her in the stomach’. She went on sick leave as a result. ‘I was working in a department where a student stabbed another student in one of the classrooms,’ he said. ‘We actually had as a school a procedure for that. In that school there was a tannoy system. ‘The tannoy system would talk about a Ford Escort, and depending on how certain numbers were said about that Ford Escort’s lights being on, staff knew how to react in different ways. ‘But I’m asking you, in your school is there an emergency protocol? Is there a facility in your school to lock your school down if necessary?’ Neil Lawrence, a teacher from Nottingham, told the conference that a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) injured her back after a pupil pulled a chair from beneath her as a prank. Staff at eight schools refused to teach pupils who threw chairs, brought fireworks in and threatened to slit other children’s throats, last year . He said: ‘This NQT still hasn’t returned to work. She’s still in a lot of pain.’ Jane Setchfield, an NASUWT executive member for Wales, said some schools are operating a sliding scale discipline policy. This means that ‘a pupil verbally abusing a main scale teacher will have a minor sanction’. She added: ‘Verbal abuse to a head of department or even the headteacher may result in a more serious sanction or even exclusion.’ NASUWT delegates yesterday passed a motion condemning an ‘increasing blame culture’ that attempts to hold individual teachers responsible for poor pupil behaviour.
target: NASUWT union said indiscipline is a 'significant problem' at many schools .
  Teachers are sworn at, kicked and punched while one had her arm broken .
  Deputy headteacher was restraining boy when she fell and fractured arm .
  Last year staff at eight schools refused to teach badly behaved pupils .