Violence in Edinburgh schools resulting in 14 injuries every day

Shocking statistics have revealed 14 injuries result from violence in Edinburgh schools every day, as councillors are to consider ways to fight it.

Data before the city’s education committee next week shows that violence in schools towards staff and pupils causing injury is up almost 36% from last year, with 2,680 cases reported.

And violence not causing injury is up, too, with 1,447 cases marking a 60% increase.

Edinburgh’s education boss has called the figures “concerning”, and said that the council has been taking action to improve reporting over the past two years.

A report before the education committee lays out a proposal to help combat the crisis, including a revised plan around dealing with bad behaviour in schools.

And extra support would be made available to staff facing violence and harassment, while support staff would also get extra training to help them deal with the issues.

But Phill Pearce, president of the Edinburgh branch of teachers’ union EIS, says more action is needed.

“It’s not enough. It needs to be taken as more of a priority. We are really struggling against a backdrop of too little resources and not enough time.

“It’s widespread. I think there’s a narrative out there that it’s confined just to areas of social deprivation and so on. But that is not the case.

“The increased level of needs that are present in all our schools in Edinburgh is partly responsible for [the levels of violence].

“We have a greater range of needs in the classroom and not the levels of support that are needed for that.”

Mr Pearce would like to see a slight reduction of class contact hours, which he says would help give staff time to have discussions with disruptive students, among other benefits.

He said that, though the published data did not break the violence down by school type, a good portion of the violence is likely in special schools.

However, Mr Pearce stressed that violence was widespread outside the council’s special schools as well.

The majority of ‘behaviour of concern’ incidents – including violence, harassment, and aggressive behaviour – occurred at the primary school level.

But 319 incidents occurred in city secondary schools in the 2024/25 school year – more than double the number in the year prior.

The report also included data from a survey of school staff, asking for their views on violence they see in their day to day work.

Staff reported that violence sometimes centred around vape and mobile phone use, and that misogyny was often present during attacks on staff.

Additionally, they said that low numbers of support staff in schools are not helping the problem – an issue made worse given their declining numbers in the council.

Since 2022, the council has lost almost 100 primary school support assistants, according to a published freedom of information request.

Reporting in Edinburgh Live late last year found that many teachers and support staff face daily violence in carrying out their jobs.

Additionally, some support staff said that they had to rely on food banks and other support services to get by due to low pay.

One warned that “one of these days, someone is going to get killed” by violence carried out by students.

Labour councillor and education convener James Dalgleish said: “It is of course concerning to see that there has been a rise in the number of incidents of violence in our schools.

“If and when behaviours of concern do occur, staff in schools are encouraged to report it as soon as it happens, so that appropriate action can be taken and the right support put in place.

“In fact, over the past two years we have made significant improvements to the process for school staff to record and monitor of behaviours of concern.

Any reports of this type of incident are taken extremely seriously with a focus on making sure we are getting it right for every child.

“We are balancing a focus on staff safety, while also offering the right training, including making sure that all our school staff are trauma informed.”

Councillors will consider the recommendations at the next meeting of the Education, Children and Families Committee on Tuesday, November 4.