A Hobart teacher says she has been punched, left concussed and hospitalised as school violence continues to escalate across Tasmania.
Lauren Duncan, an advanced skills teacher at Brighton High School, has shared the extent of physical attacks on educators as new figures reveal a 195% jump in school violence over the past two years.
In 2024, Tasmanian schools and colleges reported 1,363 incidents of physical violence involving students and staff or between students themselves.
That compares with 462 incidents in 2022 and 696 in 2023.
It means that on any given school day across the state, seven serious incidents occur in which a Tasmanian student or teacher is physically assaulted.
“I’ve been hit in the face, punched in the face, punched in different parts of my body,” Duncan said.
“In the last five years, I have been to the emergency room twice. I have had a concussion. I’ve had things thrown at me.”
She said the threat of violence had become a routine part of the job, with some students regularly raising their fists or threatening to hurt staff.
“The verbal aggression towards educators has increased,” she said.
“I’ve witnessed it and I’ve been there and borne the brunt of it.”
The alarming statistics were revealed during budget estimates by the Department for Education, Children and Young People, prompting Labor to call for urgent action.
Labor leader and shadow education minister Josh Willie said the crisis could no longer be ignored.
“When you’ve seen a 195% increase in violence in schools in the past two years, it’s urgent,” he said. “You can’t put this off any longer.”
“I want to see the education minister listening to her workforce and working through these challenges.”
“Our school staff deserve that sort of respect and they deserve to be safer than what they are at the moment.”
Duncan described a disconnected support system that leaves injured teachers feeling abandoned.
After filing incident reports, staff receive generic automated emails directing them to employee assistance programs.
“That stuff is very disconnected,” she said. “There’s a backlog of people getting into the workers’ compensation system and it takes time to get answers.”
She said violence and aggression now dominate staffroom conversations.
“The change in our kids, they are disengaged from school,” she said. “The respect towards educators and teachers isn’t there anymore.”
Duncan said targeted intervention programs at some schools were proving effective, but noted they weren’t government-funded.
“Our students that are disengaged, that are struggling to actually fit into our mainstream classrooms for whatever reason, whether it be trauma, disability, disengagement, having these tier three programs with some really great evidence-based practices happening is great,” she said.
“But it’s not a thing that’s seen or funded for all schools. You have to do it off your own back.”
She called for more support staff, alternative education options and external programs that don’t add to teachers’ workloads.
“It feels like we’ve been left to devise solutions ourselves and we just don’t have the resources in our schools to really truly meet the needs of everyone,” she said.
Willie said the government and Education Minister Jo Palmer were failing to listen to the workforce despite ongoing industrial action.
He also called for a dedicated group to identify evidence-based practices that could help make schools safer for staff and students.
“Their conditions are learning conditions and what they need is more support to deal with these sorts of challenges,” he said.
“Now we know just how serious the crisis really is, when will the minister listen to school staff and support improvements to their conditions?”
Earlier this month it was revealed that 100 Tasmanian teachers were injured so severely last year they couldn’t return to work.
Education Minister Jo Palmer acknowledged the data showed an increase in violent incidents, which she said may in part reflect teachers being encouraged to report incidents more thoroughly.
“There is no place for violence anywhere in our schools or our community, and my heart goes out to anyone impacted by this unacceptable behaviour,” she said.
“There are serious consequences for those whose behaviour does not meet expectations within our schools because keeping staff and students safe is a priority.”
Palmer said a violence prevention and reduction steering committee, established in July, is working to develop a “strategic, whole-of-system approach to preventing and reducing violence in school”.
“We know there are a range of external factors and circumstances outside the school gate that impact student behaviour and addressing this requires a whole-of-community response,” she added.
