Monday, August 24, 2015
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Teachers kicked, bitten by pupils BY DAISY HUDSON
DAISY.H@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
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Teachers are not being adequately prepared for the increasingly complex behavioural problems they are facing in the classroom, according to an Ashburton principal. The behaviour of primary school pupils hit the headlines this week after a North Island principal claimed children as young as five were kicking and biting their teachers at the slightest provocation. While that may come as a shock to many parents, Mid Canterbury Principals’ Association president Chris Murphy says not only is it an issue in the district, but teachers are leaving ter-
tiary education not fully equipped to cope with it. “Schools are increasingly having to meet the demands of complex social behaviours,” he said. “It definitely does stretch school resources.” Teachers’ college did not adequately prepare teachers for life in a modern classroom, he said. “You are all things, to all people, all the time,” he said. However in general, he believed Mid Canterbury was “better off ” than some other centres in terms of extreme behaviour. Hampstead School principal Peter Melrose also believed behavioural
problems were increasingly challenging. “I think if you asked around the community those sorts of things do happen, and in a range of schools,” he said. “Teaching is no longer just about standing up in front of the classroom and delivering the curriculum.” While a school’s “core business” was still academic, they did not work in isolation from the family or the needs of the student, he said.
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