Half of teachers receive homophobic, racist or sexist abuse
A new survey has warned that teachers in the UK are being bullied by parents and pupils.
According to teachers unions, cases of homophobic, racist and sexist attacks on social media are becoming the norm.
In the survey by NASUWT of more than 1300 teachers, more than half of them said they received threatening or abusive comments from both pupils and parents.
Some of the worst cases included a teacher being threatened with rape and a teacher, who told a pupil off for swearing, was called a “f*cking little lesbian” and was told that she would be “knocked out”.
Online abuse has risen from 48% to 55% in the last 12 months though responses from the local government, schools and police remain low.
The NASUWT survey states that 79% of abuse came from Facebook with almost a third of all teachers reporting to having seen a video of them posted online.
Chris Keates, the general secretary of NASUWT said there should be a “zero tolerance approach” towards online abuse.
Keates added, however, that only 28% of teachers said their school had an internet policy that makes specific reference to protecting staff from abuse by social media.
One teacher commended: “Senior leaders in school need more training in dealing with these issues, particularly where they do not have a comprehensive understanding of the way in which social media operates.”
Birmingham is hosting the annual conference of NASUWT and Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, is expected to address the gathering on Saturday.