ONE teacher is physically assaulted almost every day in York's schools.

Shocking figures obtained by The Press reveal that education staff were assaulted by pupils more than 170 times - nearly once for every day of the school year.

Education campaigners today labelled the statistics "extremely worrying," while teachers' unions said classroom violence can be "a huge problem".

The figures, released under the Freedom Of Information Act, showed that 20 incidents of verbal abuse and 172 physical attacks were reported to city education bosses between April 2005 and March 2006.

Nick Seaton, York-based boss of the Campaign For Real Education, said: "The figures are extremely worrying.

"There is something going seriously wrong with the education system if that many youngsters each year are assaulting teachers either verbally or physically."

Mr Seaton said his group had reports from teachers in the city that painted a similar picture.

"We do get teachers, especially supply teachers who see a lot of schools, who complain that youngsters are running out of control in lots of classes," he said.

"A lot of them are getting very worried and some are simply leaving the profession because of behaviour problems."

Education bosses from City of York Council said the reports included minor injuries suffered by staff while breaking up fights and accidental assaults by special needs children.

But they said the authority had recorded no major attacks on teachers or claims by staff against it for attacks by pupils.

Barbara Regan, secretary of the National Union of Teachers' York branch, said the union always pressed for youngsters who assaulted staff to be dealt with firmly.

"It can be a huge problem for teachers," she said. "We always do our best to make sure that the local authority deals with it in a suitable way. I do think there is a problem and I think it is growing. It is a genuine trend, although in York it is not a particularly large trend. But across the country it is getting to be more and more serious."

But the council's director of children's services, Patrick Scott, said most of the reports involved younger children in distress rather than older children directing their anger at teachers.

He said he was often "staggered" at how well teachers defused aggressive situations in schools.

"They know how to get pupils under control, get them apart from each other and deal with any kind of backlash," he said.

"They know how to deal with them, they are used to the way they behave and most of the time they are very successful in making sure that behaviour does not erupt into anything more serious."

A City of York Council spokeswoman said: "The council takes any assault, whether it is between pupils or pupil to staff, very seriously and schools have their own procedure for dealing with such incidents.

"However, the vast majority of incidents involving staff are unintentional, and accidental, for example by children with special educational needs who may not have full control of their movements."


Figures misleading'

HEAD teachers said today that figures revealing the extent of assaults on staff did not give an accurate picture of York's schools.

Mark Barnett, head teacher of Westfield Primary School, in Acomb, said incidents usually occurred when children brought emotional problems into the classroom.

The Westfield Support Centre, housing excluded pupils from school across the city, is based on the school site.

Mr Barnett said: "There are sometimes incidents because of how a child is feeling. It is not that they are lashing out at the teachers. It is because they are genuinely emotionally upset about something. We calm them down and resolve it. We are trained to do that."

Brian Crosby, head teacher at Manor School, said the school had had no incidents of physical assaults on staff.

"I do not believe there is a problem within the York education system," he said "The vast majority of students and staff have a very good working relationship.

"There are times when young people for whatever reason get very upset and are sometimes verbally abusive, but that is not the norm. When that does happen we take action."