Teachers working in fear: Horror number of educator injuries revealed

Desperate teachers are speaking out about a spiralling number of violent injuries to educators including attacks from parents and career-ending, unfounded accusations from students.

Victorian teachers suffered 14,000 injuries in the past year, with more than half caused by workplace violence, including attacks from students, parents and teachers, new figures show.

Desperate, heartbroken teachers are speaking out about a spiralling number of violent injuries to educators including alarming, career-ending unfounded accusations being made by students.

It comes as one teacher has spent five months getting a rant from a former student removed from a prominent online chat platform which was so widely read that it was rated number one on Google in January.

The post accuses the experienced, well-respected educator of being racist, toxic and playing favourites. In part it reads: “He didn’t help me improve my marks … instead blaming me for my lack of progress”.

The student had previously praised the teacher for his work.

The teacher said the 640-word post led to parents withdrawing their kids from his class.

“The distress is unimaginable. It nearly caused me to resign,” he said.

Victorian teachers suffered 14,000 injuries in the past year.

As at 30 June 2024, Victorian Institute of Teaching was actively assessing 2,252 notifications and complaints against teachers.

Another teacher with decades of experience in Victorian state classrooms said the situation in schools is “worse than it’s ever been by a considerable margin”.

“Teachers are broken. Workplace violence, bullying and hostility is marginalised. The DET does nothing except put out bland statements. Principals are out of their depth,” he said on one online forum teachers are sharing their war stories.

“Teaching – the only profession where you can be assaulted verbally and physically and receive no real protection from your employer and told it’s part of the job,” said another teacher.

“Principals bullying teachers, teachers bullying students, students bullying teachers and students bullying students. Toxic culture,” said another.

A departmental whistleblower has revealed there are currently 14,104 injuries suffered by staff on the statewide OHS database in the past 12 months. These include 851 WorkSafe notifiable incidents for the same period.

A ‘toxic culture’ is taking over our schools.

Half of the reported injuries are for work-related violence, 14 per cent are falls and trips and 11 per cent unintentionally hit or struck.

There are also 23,000 incidents which have not been acted on, dating back five years or more.

The source says “serious student violence, including stabbing threats, assaults, and sexualised behaviours” are met with “inconsistent or weak disciplinary responses”.

The Education Department’s WorkCover premium is now more than $200m a year, up $100m from 2022/23, official statistics show.

The insider said the $9m OHS program brought in to improve safe systems of work has done “little to improve safety outcomes for teachers and education support staff”.

The Herald Sun has previously reported Victoria’s teaching and school staff missed more than 900,000 days of work last financial year due to injuries.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: “violence and aggression towards staff is not tolerated in Victorian government schools and the health and wellbeing of students and staff is a key priority.”

“The new statewide OHS Services Program boosts support to reduce workload and improve safety management, and makes it easier for school staff to report and manage incidents.”

“We’re also expanding evidence-based programs like the School-wide Positive Behaviour Support program and providing specialist coaches to teach schools how to handle difficult situations.”

Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said: “deteriorating workplace behaviour has a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of students and staff”.

”The Allan Labor Government must get serious about improving school outcomes for students and safety for staff.”