Assaults on teachers by pupils (FOI)

Request

How many physical assaults on teachers have there been in the past five years, broken down by year and school?

Please also indicate, within each school, how many different teachers have reported being physically assaulted, broken down by year over the past five years?

Response

The information in the following table is taken from the school exclusions data. This may include incidents involving teachers or other adult members of staff in the school.

Due to the small numbers represented below, the Department have determined that to provide a breakdown by school, or where there are fewer than five incidents, would likely breach the privacy of the individuals. Article 25 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) 2011 Law has been applied.

Physical assault against an adult:

The data above represents only Government of Jersey maintained and fee-paying maintained schools. It does not include the private schools.

The Teachers’ Survey 2015 to 2016 reported that 7% of respondents had been subject to a physical attack by a pupil in the past year and 8% reported it in the 2017 to 2018 survey.

The surveys are available at the following links:

Teachers' Survey 2015 to 2016

Teachers’ Survey 2017 to 2018

The results from the 2019 to 2020 survey will be published once the analysis is complete later this year.

Article Applied

Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.