School Violence Feared

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32216, 7 February 1970, Page 11

School Violence Feared

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, Feb. 6. A London headmaster yesterday gave a warning that “blackboard jungle conditions,” which bred student violence in America, could develop in British schools. The warning came in a report by London teachers calling for protection against assault and abuse from their pupils. Mr Kenneth Hooton, one of the instigators of the report, said: “We are not suggesting that blackboard jungle conditions exist in London schools, but we want something done about the present trend. We do not want the conditions of America to develop in this country.”

The report added that the strain on teachers was becoming increasingly severe, and some had suffered nervous breakdowns. One example of violence quoted today by the “Daily Sketch,” said that a young woman teacher was punched in the face when she asked a 14-year-old boy to stop talking. The newspaper said that Miss Sheila Taylor, an English literature teacher in the Marylebone area of London, had to receive three stitches in her lip and was away from school for four weeks. In another report, a classics master, who stopped three sixth-year boys from running in the corridor of an East End school was knifed in the neck. However, the teacher, a former British marine, disarmed the youth who was later ex-

pelled from the school, the “Daily Sketch” report said. The report won the teachers, little sympathy from the Minister of Education (Mr Edward Short) who refused to grant the teachers’ campaign for a pay rise of £135 a year. Mr Short told Parliament that he would not concede an interim increase unless the teachers reached agreement with the employers’ negotiators or agreed to submit to independent arbitration. Teachers at selected London schools ended their latest series of strikes today, driving up to No. 10 Downing Street, the London residence of the Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson) in a doubledecker bus to deliver a petition with 7000 signatures.