School principals report rising violence, threats and abuse from students and parents alike

Rob Halliday was on bus duty at a school in country South Australia when he was aggressively confronted by an adult, who was friends with a year 9 student he had reprimanded for throwing apples at other students.

"He said 'I'm here to kill you' and a lot of expletives, and with that, he threw a fist which hit the side of my head," Mr Halliday said.

He and another teacher were able to subdue the man.

Twenty years have passed and he's now happily retired after a 40-year career as a vocational education teacher and deputy principal, but the impact remains.

Teachers today are banned from speaking to the media and Mr Halliday said he wanted to speak out to give the profession a voice and call for greater respect for educators.

"Teaching is one of the toughest jobs going around and they should be the most highly respected professional group in our society," Mr Halliday said.

Mr Halliday had concerns about the lack of respect towards school staff back when he worked in education — but a new survey indicates the issue has dramatically worsened.

'Kicked' and 'bitten': Principals report record-level violence

Violence against teachers has increased by 80 per cent since 2011, when data was first collected for The Australian Catholic University's long-running principal wellbeing survey.

According to the report, both direct violence and threats are now at record levels, leaving too many school leaders experiencing behaviours that "should not be tolerated in professional workplaces".

"They [principals] are at the point of saying, 'I do not wish to continue, I don't need this. I love my job [but] I'm just not willing to continue,'" ACU researcher and former principal Paul Kidson said.

"That's a tragic loss."

Half of the 2,182 school leaders to complete the survey reported experiencing violence during 2024.

"A lot of the physical violence that they are subjected to sadly comes from students, and that can be a variety of incidents," Dr Kidson said.

"In the last couple of weeks, I've had teachers report to me incidents of being kicked, one teacher showed me where they had been bitten."

More than half of school leaders — 54.5 per cent — also reported being threatened with violence.

Parents and caregivers were often responsible for the threats, whether it be through sending emails or "turning up" at school and threatening staff in person, Dr Kidson said.

He said there were also issues with cyberbullying, with parents going online and saying "unconscionable things with a sense of impunity".

The deteriorating safety, along with increasing workloads, has left more than half of the profession considering walking away.

"There is a risk of losing a couple of generations," Dr Kidson said.

The research was partly funded by a number of principals' unions.

It also found persistent mental health problems among principals, though there was a decline in the number of teachers experiencing severe depression compared to last year.

Dr Kidson said there was hope on the horizon with a new school funding deal not only promising better resources for teacher and student mental health, but also social workers and even paramedics.

No escape from societal problems spilling into schools

Teachers and principals' unions are also reporting growing concerns about safety among their members.

Mat Grining, the president of the Tasmanian Principals Association (TPA), puts the worsening situation in the classroom down to a complex mix of problems outside of schools.

Mr Grining was a principal himself until he took up his current job two years ago, and is able to speak to the media because of his union role.

"Schools are this intersection in the community where we feel every impact of the pressures in society: whether that's housing affordability, homelessness, issues around substances or family violence situations," he said.

Mr Grining said his members were increasingly concerned about violence and harassment.

"The experiences that are reported by principals range from persistent threats on social media, threats of harm, threats of violence, threats of property damage, right through to school leaders needing to take out legal orders to protect themselves," Mr Grining said.

"For some school leaders, it would feel like there is no escape."

The TPA was not one of the groups that helped fund the research.

Mr Halliday, who was assaulted 20 years ago, eventually had surgery on his knee, which hit the ground during the incident.

He said teachers deserved better.

"I would say to anyone out there, if you've got someone teaching your child, support them and tell them what a good job they're doing," he said.