Attack 'ended my teaching career': The toll of rising pupil violence

"I became a shell of myself," said Michelle Stone, who suffered disabling injuries when she was attacked by a student at a special school in Hampshire.

She was left with serious spinal injuries, broken ribs and a fractured collarbone when a pupil threw a heavy chair at her, hitting her across the back.

"This young person had been exceptionally violent in the weeks leading up to my injury, they had broken somebody's wrist, torn someone's rotator cuff," Michelle said.

"So, I had been asking to move this student because I knew we couldn't meet their needs and I knew something like this was going to happen."

But her repeated requests had been refused, leaving her, she said, in an "impossible situation - one that was preventable".

The former head teacher from Bournemouth, Dorset, warned violence by pupils was "only getting worse" and said teachers were leaving as a result.

Michelle said she and her staff were "highly trained in managing challenging and often dangerous" behaviour.

But despite following "all the correct procedures" during the incident, her physical injuries and continuing chronic pain have ended her career.

"I want to make sure no-one else goes through this," she said.

Michelle's assertion that student aggression against teaching staff is worsening, is supported by Health and Safety Executive statistics (HSE).

In the central south of England, BBC analysis of HSE data showed the number of reported injuries caused by "acts of violence" against school and college employees is two-and-a-half times higher than it was 10 years ago.

In the last decade, 649 staff in the region reported being injured, including having had bones broken and suffering cuts, bites and bruises. Annually, the number rose from 37 in 2015/16 to 98 in 2024/25.

Reported injuries to teaching staff by county in 2024/25:

• Berkshire - 8
• Buckinghamshire - 15
• Dorset - 15
• Hampshire and Isle of Wight - 36
• Oxfordshire - 7
• Surrey - 8
• West Sussex - 9

In 2025, Department for Education data showed there were 17,066 suspensions or permanent exclusion of students for physically assaulting an adult in schools across the counties listed above.

In the same year, a national survey by the teaching union NASUWT found 20% of teachers said they had been hit or punched by pupils and 16% reported being kicked.

For teachers working in schools with students with special needs and disabilities (SEND), the proportion who reported being physically assaulted in 2025 was 60%.

Workplace assault expert Joanne Soccard, from Thompson's Solicitors, said her office in Oxford received at least a dozen new injury claim cases from teaching staff across the south-east of England each month.

She said she did not wish to "demonise" SEND children, because aggression was not always the result of a conscious decision.

But she said her experience suggested the SEND crisis may be contributing to the "growing number of injuries".

She said: "About 90% of our cases come from SEND provision schools or it's a SEND child within the mainstream school.

"Within mainstream, we tend to see more incidents where it's pupil against pupil and then staff have had to intervene and they've been assaulted whilst intervening to try and keep the other pupils safe."

She called for "prompt action" to ensure SEND pupils were properly risk-assessed and in the right placements.

Prof Umar Toseeb, a psychologist from the University of York, focuses on special educational needs and children's mental health.

He stressed children with SEND were "not inherently violent" and could find school environments "overwhelming", particularly if their needs were "not being met".

"What our research shows is that when you have an unmet need, it escalates and compounds, like a snowball effect, which might be some of the reasons why we're seeing some violence," he said.

He also cited lengthy waits for mental health services, adding: "Part of this might be driven by children who have a mental health need that's not being met."

Prof Toseeb believes the solution is early identification of a child's needs, a preventative approach and reforming a "one size fits all" education system that "relies too much on academic attainment".

"In a different environment, that child might thrive," he added.

One Dorset teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, said she left her previous SEND school after being "head-butted, punched, kicked and bitten".

She believes the "biggest issue" is schools agreeing to take on challenging students and then failing to put sufficient support or teaching staff in place.

Michelle, who received a six-figure compensation settlement, said more needs to be done to stop teachers quitting whether they work in SEND schools or mainstream.

"Teachers are really worried that either something like what's happened to myself is going to happen to them, or that they will be blamed for an outburst in their classroom," she said.

The school leaders' union NAHT said: "These dedicated professionals work hard day in day out to deliver a first-rate education for children, in often trying circumstances.

"They should certainly not have to suffer violence."

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "Violence affecting teachers is completely unacceptable and schools should never be left to deal with it alone.

"That's why we are taking action through 93 Attendance and Behaviour Hubs to share their expertise and tackle the root causes before problems escalate."

They added the government was working on "an inclusive education system", highlighting more SEND training for teachers and 50,000 new specialist places.

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