Teachers compensation hits £11 million
New figures revealed that a teacher has been awarded £155,000 after a pupil grabbed her by the neck after she told him to get back to his work.
The teacher asked the misbehaving pupil to get on with his work, but when she turned her back he jumped up and grabbed her neck and hand. The assault left her with ligament damage to her wrist, hand and fingers.
Despite a switch to remote working because of Covid, compensation claims led by the NASUWT teaching union reached more than £11.7 million. The figures also included a £48,000 pay out for a couple who were dismissed from their jobs at a private school in Wales after one of them became ill.
General secretary of the NASUWT, Dr Patrick Roach, said, “While compensation is recognition of the personal and, in some cases, financial loss that members have suffered, it can never make up for the impact which unfair treatment, discrimination and physical injuries have on individuals. The money awarded cannot compensate for the emotional, physical and mental distress members have experienced and the fact that, for some, their experiences have left them unable to continue working in their chosen profession.”
He went on to comment, “Furthermore, these cases are only likely to represent the tip of the iceberg. There is no doubt that many other teachers will have been driven out of the profession without proper redress for poor, discriminatory or unfair treatment because they were too fearful to come forward or believed nothing could be done.”