The State government has been fined $25,000 after a teacher was seriously assaulted by a student at Armstrong Creek School.
The school has a specialist enrolment pathway for students with disabilities and high needs, as well as providing mainstream education. To assist with the management of students with additional learning needs and a range of behavioural issues, the school utilises School Wide Behaviour Supports in addition to individual Behavioural Support Plans. Despite these plans, teachers are periodically exposed to occupational violence and aggression (OVA) at the workplace.
In May 2022 a teacher was working in a class of students with additional learning needs when a student’s behaviour escalated, throwing furniture and ripping up his worksheets. Due to the location of the student in the classroom, the teacher and educational support staff member were unable to access the emergency telephone in the room. Instead, they decided to evacuate the remaining students to the adjoining hallway. Soon after, the student with heightened behaviour came out of the room and physically attacked the teacher, resulting in the teacher requiring 4 – 5 weeks off work with bruising to her head and back.
WorkSafe investigated the incident and the employer’s practices for responding to OVA incidents. It was found that although the employer had taken some preventative measures, there were other safety measures that were not too onerous which could have been adopted at the time.
WorkSafe identified that the following controls were reasonably practicable to provide –
- A dedicated duress phone line –
- specifically used by staff for support requests in cases of OVA
- with a different and distinct ring tone
- accessible by both land line and staff mobile (utilising school Wi-Fi)
- that alerts the admin office phones then the phones of the Principal team
- A response roster for answering duress calls.
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