Weapons, violent incidents in NSW schools almost doubles over 12 month period

Violence in NSW public schools has almost doubled in 12 months. Here are all the incidents in your area.

Violence in NSW’s public schools has almost doubled over a 12-month period, while the number of students caught with weapons has increased four-fold.

A dossier of disturbing incidents released by the Department of Education details how students use recess time at one undisclosed school in the Bondi area to buy drugs from schoolmates, while a different pupil brazenly walked around a Blue Mountains school smoking a pipe whiffing of marijuana.

In another disturbing incident, a kindergarten student in The Ponds, in Sydney’s west, turned violent towards a classmate when the student did not want to play because they were still eating their lunch.

A kindergarten student stomped on another student, the dossier said. Picture: istock

“A kindergarten student (A) has been physically aggressive with student (B), pushing the student (B) to the concrete ground and stomping on (the student’s) head causing abrasion to cheek and forehead,” the dossier states.

Worryingly, violent incidents ballooned from 1281 in 2018 to 2146 in 2019, the most recent year reported.

Incidents of drugs in schools remained relatively stable with 336 incidents in 2019.

That figure included one incident in the Taree area, on the state’s Mid North Coast, where two girls were caught in the bathroom smoking drugs before one fell ill, requiring a teacher to call an ambulance.

Students bringing weapons such as knives to school skyrocketed from 123 incidents in 2018 to 412 the following year.

Dozens of students brought the weapons with the intention of threatening their classmates, although other incidents were just innocent mistakes — including one student from a school in the Fairfield school network who brought a knife to school simply cut up lunch.

Central Coast P&C spokeswoman Sharryn Brownlee said parents must supervise what their children are doing online. Picture: Peter Clark

Central Coast P&C president Sharryn Brownlee said children may be bringing more weapons to school because they featured so prominently in video games.

“Sadly there has been more and more incidents and we need to make sure as parents we are taking responsibility for what children are watching and viewing,” she said.

“Knuckle dusters, Kung-fu items and knives are glamorised in video games and in movies and often encourage kids to get a bit of bravado.”

“Sometimes those items are easily accessed over the internet and the parents don’t even know what is in there.”

The jump in school violence and weapons comes as Department of Education records reveal it paid out almost $9 million to victims of physical and psychological bullying in the past five years.

The $8,902,774 figure includes $2.7 million paid out in 2015. The annual figure has steadily shrunk since then to just $752,000 last year.

“Since 2015, the net amount paid by the Department each year in this respect has also substantially decreased, suggesting that our anti-bullying policies and prevention measures have become more effective,” an Education Department spokesman said.

He said the bulk of weapon incident reports relate to situations where students brought an item, such as a pocket knife, to school not understanding that it is a prohibited item in schools.

“Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures from previous years have shown schools are amongst the safest places in our community, where over 823,000 students work and learn safely at over 2,200 public schools in NSW every day,” he said.