Shocked teachers horrified by fight at primary school involving dozens of year 6 students

Frustrated teachers have raised the alarm over an “organised fight club” between year 6 students at a school in one of Melbourne’s most affluent suburbs.

Multiple students suffered injuries in the recent lunchtime fight at a Melbourne primary school.

Primary school teachers across Melbourne are witnessing violence, bullying and a “serious lack of resilience” from students after what teachers have described as “the hardest term one ever.”

Year 6 students from one primary school in Bayside’s affluent suburbs were caught out after multiple students presented what one teacher called “an organised fight club”.

Multiple students suffered with hand, wrist and facial injuries after a lunchtime fight drew in a crowd of more than 30 kids.

A year 6 teacher, who has been educating for more than three decades and did not want to be identified, said she was shocked by the behaviour.

“This is the first time we’ve seen this level of violence in our yard,” she said.

“We really think it’s a flow-on from Covid and the way they were treating each other online.”

She claimed students had been hacking each other’s social media accounts and boys had been learning violent behaviour from video games.

Teachers say it has been ‘the hardest term one ever’.

With students lacking the ability to problem solve and “brush things off” after two years of interrupted learning, the veteran teacher said: “This is the toughest term we’ve ever had. We’re all exhausted”.

Up the road in Brighton, another primary school teacher, who has been in education for 18 years, reported a lack of resilience and a drop in maturity levels among her students.

“Children haven’t played together for a long time so there is that inability to interact,” she said.

The teacher said respect for staff had dropped significantly since lockdowns ended.

“Before Covid, teachers were treated with respect,” she said.

She said the line between what was acceptable at home and school had been “blurred”.

“Term one post-Covid feels like we are starting over, trying to establish norms and expectations that have been lost or in many cases broken between the whole school community,” she said.

“We’re all so tired.”

Child psychologist Carley McGauran, who works with primary schools to educate teachers and students about cyber safety, said a range of issues was causing of anti-social behaviour, including family situations, heightened anxiety in young people and exposure to inappropriate content online.

Kids having access to violent content through gaming and TikTok, such as war content from Ukraine and sexually explicit imagery, was a central concern to the psychologist, who said one school reported that primary aged students were making “sex noises in class and making sexualised gestures”.

She called the demand from schools “extraordinary” and said “it certainly hasn’t stopped after lockdowns, it’s ongoing”.

“It’s been a remarkable marathon,” she said.

There are concerns the violence and unrest at schools is a flow on from Covid.

Shadow Minister for Education David Hodgett said a lack of social and emotional maturity from students was a major concern educators had voiced.

“Teachers have commented that there is a disconnect between students’ chronological age and their developmental age, which reflects the time spent away from school,” Minister Hodgett said.

“Which has significant implications for social issues in schools.”

President of the Australian Education Union Victorian branch Meredith Peace, recognised “the new challenges and additional workload” teachers are facing, including “managing students whose behaviours may be reflecting the difficulties they themselves have experienced during the pandemic.”

But she said public school teachers had shown “remarkable resilience over the past two years.”

Minister for education and mental health James Merlino, said “we knew there would be a period of readjustment to social situations.”

“That’s exactly why we’ve ramped up support for every student in every school, whether it’s with learning, mental health or social skills,” Minister Merlino said, noting that significant funding was being channelled into kids’ mental health.