Revealed: One in three Aussie principals physically attacked
Aussie principals are being abused at record rates with many saying they’ve been punched, had guns pointed at them and stabbed. And there’s one big reason for the rise in violence.
Australian principals are under attack with one in three school leaders reporting being physically abused in the past year.
And close to half of all school principals have been threatened with abuse over the same period as the rates of violence skyrocket.
Some principals have detailed being stabbed, had guns being pointed at them, headbutted, punched in the neck, spat at and even had entire whiteboards thrown at them.
Their harrowing tales include being left with post-traumatic stress disorder and frequent nightmares as a result of their abuse.
News Corp Australia can reveal the findings of a major survey of 5934 school principals which found 37 per cent were physically attacked in 2018. This was up from 27 per cent in 2011.
Female principals are experiencing violence the most, with 40 per cent saying they had been assaulted compared to 32 per cent of male principals.
Government primary schools are the epicentre of the crisis, with 49 per cent of principals of those schools being assaulted last year.
The lowest prevalence is in independent P/K-12 schools at 12 per cent, which is still 1.5 times the population rate of workplace assault.
The Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey has run nationally every year since 2011 in response to growing concern about principal wellbeing.
The report by Australian Catholic University’s Philip Riley also found our school leaders were working shocking hours, not sleeping and under significant mental stress.
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One in four principals were working between 61 to 65 hours per week and 53 per cent were working more than 56 hours per week during the school term.
Compared to the general population principals report 1.5 times higher job demands, 1.6 times higher levels of burnout, 1.7 times higher stress symptoms, 2.2 times more difficulty sleeping, 1.3 times negative physical symptoms and 1.3 times more depressive symptoms.
Educational and developmental psychologist Rose Cantali said children were increasingly experiencing mental health issues which could explain the rise in the rates of violence against principals.
“If they are struggling and not being catered for they are more likely to display either behaviours of being introverted or being overly aggressive,” Dr Cantali said.
“There has got to be more work done about how we can support teachers, children and parents through this.”
President of the Australian Secondary Principals Association Andrew Pierpoint said physical abuse of principals was on the rise but so too was cyber-bullying.
He said the very serious issues plaguing principals was resulting in an overall decline in the number of applicants for such roles.
“Quality leadership in schools is linked to quality school outcomes so we should all be concerned about this,” he said.
President of the Australian Primary Principals Association Malcolm Elliott said the report should spark a conversation about violence in our society in general.
“In some sense this is indicative of a deeper social and cultural issue and we need to figure out a way forward to solve that,” he said.
The Parenthood’s Alys Gagnon said the report was “incredibly worrying” and the violence against principals would also be having an impact on other children at the schools impacted.
“This is a really shocking example to set for children and we need to protect principals from this violence,” she said.
Education Minister Dan Tehan said principals should have a right to feel safe in their schools but that their employers were responsible for that safety.
“Improving the respect shown to our teachers and principals needs to be an absolute priority,” Mr Tehan said.
“Principals and teachers should be safe in their workplace and their employers are responsible for that safety.”
Opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said the report was shocking and “everyone has a right to feel safe at work”.
“This is completely unacceptable … as parents, we must show teachers and principals proper respect and get our children to do the same,” she said.
Principal reveals years of trauma
Veteran primary school principal Anni Miers has seen it all.
She’s been a school administrator for 17-years and has been “hit punched, spat on, threatened and abused” countless times.
“It is getting worse and frankly it is just out of control right now,” Ms Miers who is a principal in Hampton Park in Melbourne said.
Ms Miers, 66, is speaking out because she wants the level of respect for principals and teachers to increase and said she was finally brave enough to do so because she will soon retire.
“It becomes traumatic because our job is to protect all the children — even the children who hurt principals,” she said.
“Some of my colleagues are just hitting the wall with anxiety over this and I owe it to them to stand up and do this.”
Ms Miers said when she was first punched in the neck by a student she was “shocked and traumatised”.
“It was completely unexpected and I really didn’t know what to do,” she said.
Ms Miers said principals sometimes were lax to call the police because of the consequences for the children or parents involved.
“Once they are over the age of 10 it is classified as assault,” she said.
“There needs to be clearer guidelines around when we should call for police back up and what is appropriate.”
Ms Miers said children and parents needed to understand more that assaulting others was not OK.
“Sometimes the assault comes out of something been happening at home behind the scenes but we have a responsibility to keep ourselves and the whole community safe.”
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