My first day on the job coincided with a talk for everyone about how to deal with violent pupils. There was a new child starting who had lashed out at teachers in his last school. He was 7. The least said about that talk the better. It never even started on-topic and we ended getting told "don't shout at children, listen to children, always smile".... Yup, one of those.... Anyhoo, that kid IS a bastard, though he has yet to hit one of us. He did hit the daughter of the head cook. But she shouldn't have been there. She goes to a different school and is far too old to go here anyway. Christ knows why she turns up. Still, I haven't seen her since.
Andrea, over here 30 children is about the norm for a class. In high school my year's was the biggest. We had seven classes and each one had over thirty children. :shock: We had some ****s in my year but I can honestly say I never notice anyone constantly bully the same person. There were people at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, who got the odd thump and name calling but I don't think there was anyone who got it all the time by the same person. Looking back that seems kind of odd for such a large group. Still, I could be wrong and I just didn't notice it.
Also, over here schools get encouraged to take the "difficult" pupils. The ones who, ideally, would be in a special school designed for them. They get X amount of money to pay for the one-on-one carers they need. Of course, after a while the school says "we don't need that carer" but still keep the money. They're talking of making it easier to expel pupils. That's great and everything, but I expect there to be more cash incentives to take in these expelled pupils. So the schools which want or need to chase the money will end up with lots more little gits.
