A Steenberg principal has told of an attack by a pupil on a Grade 1 teacher by one of her pupils.
|||Cape Town - A Steenberg principal has told of an attack by a pupil on a Grade 1 teacher - who then had to be booked off for stress.
Earlier this week, Eyewitness News reported that according to Noel Isaacs, principal of Floreat Primary in Steenberg, the incident happened last year.
He said most of his pupils were good children and despite attacks on teachers being seen as isolated incidents at the school, it was still concerning.
On Thursday, Isaacs told CapeTalk breakfast show host Kieno Kammies: “It happened last year where the child just attacked the teacher physically. We’ve also had two other incidents.”
He said people would think that there would be more disciplinary problems in the higher grades, but increasingly, over the past two or three years, pupils in grades 1, 2 and 3 were the ones proving problematic.
Isaacs said the school was a typically working-class school and tried to instil that living in poverty did not translate into being rude or excuse insolent behaviour.
Western Cape Education Department spokesman Paddy Attwell said the school had experienced problems of this kind in the past.
“Our district office implemented a positive behaviour programme at the time aimed mainly at training teachers in dealing with serious misconduct. The programme proved to be successful and was used as an example of best practice. Unfortunately, it appears that the problem has surfaced again.”
He said the district office would continue to support the school.
Attwell said the school referred 15 requests for expulsion to the department last year for offences against teachers and other members of staff.
“Twelve allegedly involved physical assault, of which five resulted in expulsion. The other three cases involved verbal or threatening behaviour, of which two resulted in expulsion.”
Joan van Niekerk, manager of marketing at Childline, said children were being exposed to very high levels of violence in South Africa, and this was reflected in their behaviour.
“They will repeat this behaviour, and not just towards other children,” she warned.
ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za
Cape Argus