Legal action to prevent terrorised teachers getting help

The workplace safety watchdog ordered that teachers facing up to 20 violent and sexist attacks every day from students at their Victorian school need psychiatric support on site, but the Education Department has launched legal action to fight the ruling due to the cost implications.

Female staff members said they were afraid of some of their students, scared to walk in the yard during breaks and had suffered gendered harassment from boys at the school where some male pupils were “idolising” the misogynistWorkSafe found about 80 per cent of the school’s 90 employees were working regularly with a cohort of about 70 children – from a student body of about 1200 – who regularly physically attacked, verbally abused or threatened to harm their teachers.

But the department rejected the WorkSafe findings, citing extensive efforts by the school to manage student behaviour and protect staff’s physical and mental health, and arguing that psychological support was already available through employee assistance services and early intervention programs. The department argued in its application for review that Warrnambool was far from the only school in the state dealing with workplace violence and that the provision of a full-time mental health worker at one campus would “have implications for every Victorian government school where incidents of work-related violence occur”.“This would have a significant impact on resourcing and cost implications for the state,” it said.

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