Parents of students at Busselton Senior High School are calling for a culture change after a serious assault occurred last week which saw one student hospitalised.
Last Tuesday, a 15 year-old boy was charged by police for assaulting another student who had to be taken by ambulance to hospital for assessment and treatment.
A former teacher at the school told the Mail that Busselton, like a number of schools, had struggled to deal with behaviour management since an expert review group investigation in 2012.
The teacher, who did not want to be named, said there was an increasing number of difficult students in all schools – not just Busselton – that presented huge challenges.
The teacher said this group equated to 5 per cent of the population but dragged down another 10 per cent that seriously impacted upon the culture of a school.
“The management of these students has never been based on restorative justice processes and this group just keep on doing the same things.
”They create an occupational health and safety issue for all staff, and regardless of all the documentation of what they do - things will never change unless there are real consequences - and infringements cannot be hidden.”
The teacher said incidents like assaults needed to be transparent and if there was an inability to deal with a difficult student then a provisional improvement notice should be served.
“As in any workplace in WA.”
Despite regulation 38 of the School Education Regulations stating staff at government schools could make physical contact with a student to re-establish order where safety was at risk, the directive from the Department of Education and Training said otherwise.
In a letter from a principal it stated, ‘Under no circumstances should teachers apply or use physical restraint against students for any reason.’
The teacher said, staff now had no power to restrain students under the DET directions.
“So incidents like this will escalate as students realise staff are reluctant to intervene in fights even though recent decisions in the WA Industrial Relations Commission state that teachers have the right under the 2000 Education Act to restrain students discounting any DET directives.”
The DET did not respond to questions on the number of assaults which had occurred at the school instead said it was time to call out any violence.
DET acting deputy director general Stephen Baxter said there needed to be community-wide action about changing attitudes on how people treat each other.
Mr Baxter said the incident was sickening – and while unfortunately there was some aggression in schools, we did not usually see this level of extreme violence.
A parent of a student said their child had also been assaulted last week by another student and had to leave work to take them home from school.
The parent said the incident was not isolated and more needed to be done so students felt safe at school.
Another parent said the problem has been at the school for 20 years but there was only so much teachers could do because of restrictions placed on them.
The parent said the community needed to support the school and encourage youth programs rather than condemn the young students.
“There is a reason for this behaviour and they need help. Rather than have a situation with drug problems and culture we actually address it and work with those families.
“Some of these children have never been shown life skills and they are really crying out for help.”
