Teachers have been told they were within their rights to refuse to teach violent children, even though they had a legal right to be in school. They won a ruling in the House of Lords in a test case concerning two children who were expelled from different schools in the south of England.
The children were allowed back into the schools, in Hertfordshire and south London, after their families appealed, but in both cases the teachers refused to the teach them.
Members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) voted to refuse to teach the children, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The union successfully argued that the teachers' vote to refuse to teach the pair was valid under union law.
NASUWT general secretary Eamonn O'Kane welcomed the verdict: "This landmark decision will give heart to every teacher in the country.
"It constitutes a total vindication of the stand consistently taken by the NASUWT down over the years in giving total support to members when faced with violent and/or disruptive pupil behaviour."
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