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Education - Punishment for Racism

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"There are a small number of cases of sustained targeted bullying, and schools certainly need to deal with those. But most of these 'racist incidents' are just kids falling out. They don't need re-educating out of their prejudice - they and their teachers need to be left alone."

Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Certainly any racist incident in schools should be dealt with swiftly but the definition of racism can be taken too far, especially with young children who clearly don't understand the connotation behind the words.

"Schools are dealing with ever increasing bureaucracy as they are required to fill in more forms and provide more detail on any number of issues. This government micromanagement must be curtailed."

After the introduction of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, which put a duty on public bodies to eliminate discrimination, schools were told they had to monitor the impact of their policies on the educational attainment of pupils of different races.

They were placed under a duty by the Government in 2002 to monitor and report all racist incidents to their local authority.

Special forms were created that require teachers to name the alleged perpetrator and victim, and spell out what they did and how they were punished. Schools can keep details on file.

Today's report, called The Myth of Racist Kids, calculates that some 280,000 such incidents have been reported in England since full records began. An earlier investigation using Freedom of Information requests by Channel 4 News found 95,022 incidents between 2002-03 and 2005-06.

Birmingham City Council alone has seen numbers rise from 943 in 2002-03 to 1,606 in 2008-09, while 1,248 were logged by Leeds City Council schools last year following a "big push to make sure that all incidents are reported and recorded". Essex County Council figures show that most of the children involved in reported racist incidents were aged between 9 and 11.

Schools that send in "nil" returns are criticised for "under-reporting", and are sent letters telling them to put up posters raising awareness.

Any school that fails to investigate alleged racist incidents risks being seen as "condoning racism", according to the official TeacherNet website.

Meanwhile those that report high numbers of racist incidents are praised for operating a "zero-tolerance" approach including, according to Essex, "an ethos which actively seeks to identify and eradicate all manifestations of racism, however trivial they may seem".

Teachers and other school staff are allowed to report racism even if the alleged "victim" was not offended.

In many cases, the "perpetrator" is punished by the head teacher and their parents will be told.

The new report shows an example of a Racist Incident Referral Form in which a girl who called a boy "white trash" during a football game was "severely spoken to" and suffered "loss of lunchtime play".

Sometimes the police are also called in, with the Crown Prosecution Service prosecuting 2,916 children aged between 10 and 17 for race or religious hate crimes in 2007-08, up from 404 just two years earlier.

In addition, 4,410 pupils were suspended or expelled for racist abuse in 2006-07, 350 of them in primary schools.

Even toddlers at nursery school are treated as potential racists, the report claims, with staff told "the earlier you can pick up any tendency towards discriminatory or prejudicial behaviour, the better chance you have of successfully tackling it".

Mr Hart, who was hired to make a film about racism in primary schools, says the strict policies undermine teachers' ability to set behaviour standards for pupils and reduce them "to the level of police-station counter staff".

He claims in many cases the children involved are friends who have fallen out.

He says they are often too young to understand the insults they are using, but are being treated unfairly for having "inadvertently committed an offence that adults call 'racism'".

In addition, Mr Hart says he heard pupils saying that skin colour did not matter to them, but staff believed race must not be ignored and that children would "lose part of their selves" if their differences were not celebrated.

Mr Hart believes race equality "missionaries" who scrutinise relationships in schools are actually increasing division between pupils.

He says "anti-racism workshops" lead to more reported incidents, which means more intervention by officials.

One head teacher told him that an assembly on respect for difference had led to an "awful atmosphere" as "children who used to play beautifully together .. separate along racial lines".

The report quotes a youth worker who says that when children of different backgrounds fight "it's not always a race issue", but when it becomes recorded as such it "causes racism" because the children feel they have been treated unfairly.

Mr Hart recommends that the compulsory reporting of alleged racism is scrapped, and that schools are allowed to develop their own policies of discussing diversity and dealing with playground disputes.

Diana Johnson, the Schools Minister, said: "Bullying in all forms, including those motivated by prejudice, is totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated. No-one should suffer the pain and indignity which bullying or racist abuse can cause.

"Schools can make a positive contribution and help improve all children's lives, by creating a safe learning environment where all children feel valued and can enjoy and achieve. That is why we have given head teachers and school staff the legal powers and the support they need to tackle bullying, ensuring their authority cannot be questioned. If racist bullying is not dealt with in schools, then this will send a powerful message to children that racism is acceptable - not only in schools but in society as a whole."

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Schools report 40,000 cases of racism a year

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"There are a small number of cases of sustained targeted bullying, and schools certainly need to deal with those. But most of these 'racist incidents' are just kids falling out. They don't need re-educating out of their prejudice - they and their teachers need to be left alone."

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Education

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A long-serving teacher has resigned after being filmed knocking over a special needs student at her school.

CCTV footage appears to show Amelia Stripling deliberately shove the four-year-old in the back with her knee, knocking him to the ground.

The boy is wearing a blue rucksack and standing outside the entrance of a classroom when Stripling appears from behind the open door.

Looking down at the student, she is then seen pushing her left knee into his back with such force he flies forwards and lands face first on the floor.

She then is then seen apparently trying to comfort the pupil by putting her hand around him before they both enter the classroom .

Sarah Patterson, the boy's mother, said her son has special needs and has obtained a lawyer.

Read more: Teacher hit 'vulnerable' five-year-old boy and let assistant tie his shoelaces together

The child was not seriously hurt in the incident.

Stripling's teacher page has since been removed from the website of Tift County Pre-K Center in Tifton in Georgia, US.

Read more: Headteacher struck off after spending £100,000 of school funds on holidays

The matter has been reported to the Division of Family and Children Services.

According to WALB , she had been a teacher with some 20 years experience.

The Tifton Gazette reported that in 2014, Stripling was given an Excellence in Teaching award by the Tift County Foundation for Excellence in Education.

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Teacher quits after being secretly filmed pushing special needs child over

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A long-serving teacher has resigned after being filmed knocking over a special needs student at her school. CCTV footage appears to show Amelia Stripling deliberately shove the four-year-old in the back with her knee, knocking him to the ground.

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Education

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A special needs teacher who had a public row with Michael Gove has been banned from the classroom after allegedly hitting a five-year-old around the head and pushing him off his chair.

Kay Johnston, 59, was barred from teaching indefinitely after also allowing a teaching assistant to humiliate the child, who had "complex learning difficulties".

Scotland Yard officers investigated a separate incident at East Wickham Primary Academy, in Bexley, and cautioned a 20-year-old classroom assistant for child cruelty involving the same pupil.

Johnston, who tried to gag the press by unsuccessfully applying to have her misconduct hearing in private, was not investigated by officers but found on "the balance of probabilities" to have hit the child on January 29, 2014, after the misconduct panel viewed CCTV.

She today told the Standard she will be "fighting" the case, but refused to comment further.

The National College for Teaching and Leadership panel report states that they saw images showing Ms Johnston "raise her hand", which then moves towards the pupil's head, with the child's head and upper body then seen "to jerk to the side".

Just minutes later, the report says, the CCTV shows her seemingly pushing the five-year-old, who has special needs, off his chair. The panel ruled: "Ms Johnston is seen to lift his leg and tip the chair, causing him to fall to the floor."

The report states two days later the teacher of 30 years' experience made "no effort" to stop assistants "manhandling" the child, who is seen being spun on his back by the feet, carried across the room and "roughly returned" to class from the sensory room.

The pupil's shoelaces were also tied together for two hours, causing him "discomfort" and "falling over on a number of occasions", the panel said.

Father who knocked female teacher out in brutal attack walks free

Despite being alone with the child for 30 minutes, she failed to untie them or instruct teaching assistants to. The report found, however, Ms Johnston was not aware of the laces being tied together while it was being done. She was also found to have unfairly excluded the child from classroom activities. A Scotland Yard spokesman said it cautioned a 20-year-old woman over the incident involving teaching assistants.

Ms Johnston was thrust into the public eye after having her application to set up a free school in Lewisham rejected by the Department for Education four times - accusing the department and then education secretary Mr Gove of racism.

She made the accusations after a High Court battle against the DfE and claiming an official told her one reason for objecting to her plans was because it was "for the black community" and "all their mentors are black".

Judges ruled the DfE had to change its procedures to measure the impact on equality of applications to open free schools. Johnston wanted to open a free school aimed at trying to help steer teenagers away from gang life. She later founded the independent Enterprise Diamond School, in Hither Green. She was working as a supply teacher at East Wickham Primary Academy and was only in her first week with the class, a small group of complex needs children, when the incidents occurred.

The report concluded: "Ms Johnston acted in a violent manner towards Pupil A and failed to prevent him from being adversely affected by the inappropriate actions of teaching assistants for a sustained period."

She has been banned indefinitely and can only seek a review of the decision after four years. She also has a right of appeal to the High Court.

East Wickham Primary Academy failed to respond to a request for comment.

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Teacher banned 'after hitting special needs child over head'

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A special needs teacher who had a public row with Michael Gove has been banned from the classroom after allegedly hitting a five-year-old around the head and pushing him off his chair. Kay Johnston, 59, was barred from teaching indefinitely after also allowing a teaching assistant to humiliate the child, who had "complex learning difficulties".

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the ward

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This is the horrific moment a tiny newborn baby was battered and bitten by a nurse who was supposed to be caring for her.

Chilling CCTV footage captures the moment savage Emiliya Kovacheva repeatedly beat and then bit the four-day-old tot.

The baby girl, called Nicole, was being kept under observation at the Sofiamed hospital in Bulgaria after having been born a few days earlier.

The shocking attack was initially feared to be so brutal that the baby would either not survive or be brain damaged.

Medics worked around the clock to treat little Nicole and it is thought that she will now fully recover from the ordeal.

The nurse was arrested after the CCTV images revealed the reason why the child had suddenly ended up with the injuries including bite marks.

Prosecutors claim Kovacheva, who has been charged with attempted murder, was frustrated by the fact that the newborn would not go to sleep, and decided to punish it for waking up the other babies.

The nurse initially denied doing anything wrong until the shocking CCTV footage emerged - at which point she admitted hitting the baby.

Her defence is pushing for a charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm, but if they lose and the nurse is accused of attempted murder, she faces up to 20 years behind bars.

Hospital spokesman Boriana Marinkova said: "The most important thing for a child's parents is to see how the baby will recover, other things are not so important."

But others are pushing for the most severe punishment possible.

Bulgaria actor Aleksandr Kadiev gave an interview on the incident saying that the woman should get the death penalty.

One person posted a comment online condemning the shocking incident.

They wrote: "This video was so disturbing I haven't been able to get the images out of my mind since I saw them.

"I've never seen anything so horrific. I say if you're that stressed and feel you've reached your breaking point, then leave the building, go stay with a friend, call someone who cares!

"My heart goes out to the parent of this baby. I pray she doesn't suffer any brain damage."

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What CCTV footage showed this nurse doing to a 4-day-old baby was horrific

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This is the horrific moment a tiny newborn baby was battered and bitten by a nurse who was supposed to be caring for her. Chilling CCTV footage captures the moment savage Emiliya Kovacheva repeatedly beat and then bit the four-day-old tot.