If the charges aren't dropped....

[Hatter The Mad]

Attempted murder is having a specific intention to kill someone unlawfully. Shouting "Somebody is going to get killed" could possibly be taken as intent.

everyone is talking about attempted murder, i dont really like this term, and it doesnt apply to 99% of cases, why is it thrown around?

just to clear that up

I wasn't aware you could kill someone lawfully?!

Murder is premeditated. This was a spur of the moment thing. I do not think he walked into that classroom thinking "I am going to smash a 5kg weight into whoevers head is asking for it".

putting someone in hospital by beating them up isnt attempted murder

I wouldn't class what the dude did as Attempted murder.

Just GBH.

Dragging a child (a non-aggressor) to a store room, in a headlock, picking up a 2KG metal weight and driving it into the top of the skull could quite easily be taken to be attempted murder. If he had thrown the weight at the kid, sure - straight GBH. But this was on a completely different level.

In reality, due to his diminished state of responsibility, it'll be dropped to GBH.

 

[platinum87]

Putting someone (a non-aggressor) in a headlock, picking up a 2KG metal weight and driving it into the top of the skull could quite easily be taken to be attempted murder.

In reality, due to his diminished state of responsibility, it'll be dropped to GBH.

well in this case it might be, taking into account that the teacher is weaker than a 14 year old

 

[Pilky01]

Kids can be little ****'s at that age, I can remember seeing much worse things from my school days, but if you cannot handle the stress you should not be a teacher. How anyone can defend a man who got a child into a headlock and bludgeoned him almost to death is beyond me.

 

[Efour]

Dmpoole summed it up perfectly. There is no respect these days, respect comes from, lets be honest, fear.

My sister is a 2ndry school teacher, she has been spat on, physically assaulted, verbally assaulted and robbed multiple times. What does the school do ? Next to nothing.
You so much as raise your voice in a class these days and kids will threaten to take you to court.

This guy completely and utterly lost it and what he did was completely and utterly barbaric however i can fully understand how he was driven to it.

Hindsight is such a wonderful thing - I hope something good comes of this, a review of behaviour of children in all schools. Bring back caning??

 

[Tummy]

Kids can be little ****'s at that age, I can remember seeing much worse things from my school days, but if you cannot handle the stress you should not be a teacher. How anyone can defend a man who got a child into a headlock and bludgeoned him almost to death is beyond me.

People, might not be defending him, but just understanding what he did. You can understand why people do things, but still not agree with the end result.

Empathy.

 

[rypt]

And then get told off by senior management for failing to control your children?

Would you want to let a "problem" child out in to the corridor unsupervised ?

"Senior management"? It is a school ... why does it need "management"?
And yes I would let them out in the corridor unsupervised. Once there they are no longer my problem and are for the other school authorities head master/deputy head master to deal.

This is how some teachers did it at my school if you were misbehaving sufficiently to annoy them. Tell you to go stand outside the room - chances are you would run into one of the 4 authority figures and be in more trouble than you otherwise would be.

 

[Tummy]

"Senior management"? It is a school ... why does it need "management"?
And yes I would let them out in the corridor unsupervised. Once there they are no longer my problem and are for the other school authorities head master/deputy head master to deal.

This is how some teachers did it at my school if you were misbehaving sufficiently to annoy them. Tell you to go stand outside the room - chances are you would run into one of the 4 authority figures and be in more trouble than you otherwise would be.

sorry we have to call them "senior management" yeah, basically the Head, and vice head, and then there are often, more then two teachers involved in the running of the school.

They are your problem, you have to sort out something for them to do, or somewhere for them to go. Head masters, quite often don't give support to their staff, times have changed.

I remember been sent out, and seeing my year head and just thinking "oh ****" kids aren't like that these days, well not the "problem" children, who tend to occupy the "bottom" sets

 

[Caseh]

Dmpoole summed it up perfectly. There is no respect these days, respect comes from, lets be honest, fear.

That's the problem. Respect work's both ways, and I know I didn't get any respect from my teachers when I was at school, and it's not like i can be called a problem child (0 detentions in my time there). oh, and I'm 20, so been out of school for 5 years now.

And, there is no way to defend the teacher. If a student did that, no one would defend him/her, so it should be the same for the teacher.

 

[rypt]

Granted I did go to a decent school in a decent area so we did not have lots of tards, but still - we had plenty of mis-behaving going on - plenty of it in the top sets as well (including from yours truly).
But it was never targeting a specific teacher really - and most of it was in "jest".

So perhaps I don't have the best knowledge of just how bad it gets; but I still feel that as a teacher you should just send them outside the room. What they do once out there is not of your concern and is for the wider school authorities to deal with.

That's the problem. Respect work's both ways, and I know I didn't get any respect from my teachers when I was at school, and it's not like i can be called a problem child (0 detentions in my time there). oh, and I'm 20, so been out of school for 5 years now.

How did the teachers disrespect you exactly?

 

[Tummy]

Granted I did go to a decent school in a decent area so we did not have lots of tards, but still - we had plenty of mis-behaving going on - plenty of it in the top sets as well (including from yours truly).
But it was never targeting a specific teacher really - and most of it was in "jest".

So perhaps I don't have the best knowledge of just how bad it gets; but I still feel that as a teacher you should just send them outside the room. What they do once out there is not of your concern and is for the wider school authorities to deal with.

I went to a very nice school, later in my educational life. They dealt with problem children, a lot better then the other schools, but had with the greatest amount of respect, weaker teachers, who often didn't give problem children a chance.

The children are your responsibility, you can't just tell them to go away and forget about them. If you don't want them in your class, you need to arrange for a free member of senior management to remove them, or for them to go else where, which involves year heads and subject leaders. none of which are easy to do mid lesson, with problem child been a general pain.

I was never a good boy at school, I was sent out a fair bit, but I always respected my teachers, and was never sent out due to arguments with the teachers (except art).

Now, you get children that will argue openly and question a teachers authority, this just didn't happened when I was a wee child. You were sent out for messing about with people or arguing with other people. You didn't mess with the teachers.

You respect students, and are nice and "cool" towards them, they're often like that back, and you have a better working relationship. If not, you're in a much worse position.

edit: its late. night.

 

[Caseh]

How did the teachers disrespect you exactly?

Wasn't all of them, but a couple of the teachers would talk down to all the student's but not just me. I can even remember one of the times, 1(ONE) person was a couple of minutes late to the the lesson, so the teacher tried to force us all to do the lesson stood up, and actually went round taking the chairs off people.

I have no problem with discipline, but (from my experience, atleast) there are too many power hungry teachers. Possibly, and most probably just happened to have a bad school/set of teachers, but one can only speak from their own experiences.

 

[rypt]

I went to a very nice school, later in my educational life. They dealt with problem children, a lot better then the other schools, but had with the greatest amount of respect, weaker teachers, who often didn't give problem children a chance.

The children are your responsibility, you can't just tell them to go away and forget about them. If you don't want them in your class, you need to arrange for a free member of senior management to remove them, or for them to go else where, which involves year heads and subject leaders. none of which are easy to do mid lesson, with problem child been a general pain.

I was never a good boy at school, I was sent out a fair bit, but I always respected my teachers, and was never sent out due to arguments with the teachers (except art).

Now, you get children that will argue openly and question a teachers authority, this just didn't happened when I was a wee child. You were sent out for messing about with people or arguing with other people. You didn't mess with the teachers.

You respect students, and are nice and "cool" towards them, they're often like that back, and you have a better working relationship. If not, you're in a much worse position.

edit: its late. night.

My school (I'm only 22 ... so it wasn't that long ago) had no problem with kids being outside the room unsupervised and so on. As I said people have been sent out; including me.
As far as the teacher is concerned - once the person is outside the room it is not his responsibility and is up to the "management" to deal with it.

Teachers also took most things directed at them in good spirit.
For instance we had a young (25ish) Maths teacher ... and one day we (15/16 yo at this point) had found a cone somewhere. So someone had brought it into the room without the teacher noticing.
While the guy was writing something on the board someone else got up to go to the bin, and then picked up the cone and put in on the teacher's chair.
Teacher turns around, sees cone ... but take it in good spirits and gets the person to take it outside. Person simply leaves it outside the door though.
Cue me needing to go to the toilet - so on the way back I pick up the cone and put it back on the teacher's desk but this time put the teacher's jacked that is on the back of the chair on top of the cone.
Guy doesn't notice the cone for a while this time - and when he does he again has it removed (by me as one of my friends thought it would be fun to tell him that I put it there).
So I just leave it next door - and someone else tries (and get's caught) bringing it in.

So is the above us targeting a teacher; or us just having a bit of fun and the teacher seeing it for the innocent fun that it is?

EDIT: The worst it got with respect to me was our IT teacher who was clueless - to the point where I would semi openly mock him as he was clueless. I'm not talking about insulting him personally, or anything like that ... but just little things. Like pointing out whenever he said something wrong; or taking the **** during an exam "revision" session. He had set a challenge that he would give a Mars bar to the first person who gave the correct answer (in an attempt to make the not so bright kids actually try) - so I simply proceeded to clean him out of every single Mars bar within a second of him asking the question - even though the revision session was not really aimed at me.
The worst was probably when I had managed to get the admin password for our network (due to me co-running the Computer club at that point already and us having a separate linux server that the other co-runner decided to use to sniff passwords).
During a lesson when he was using the projector to show some useless excel function I used the admin access to make his browser launch onto a questionable website that I found got past our filters.

Thing is though, I knew the line and never personally insulted or threatened the guy ... so while he might get ****ed at me with respect to disrupting his lessons outside of that he didn't really have a problem with me.

Wasn't all of them, but a couple of the teachers would talk down to all the student's but not just me. I can even remember one of the times, 1(ONE) person was a couple of minutes late to the the lesson, so the teacher tried to force us all to do the lesson stood up, and actually went round taking the chairs off people.

I have no problem with discipline, but (from my experience, atleast) there are too many power hungry teachers. Possibly, and most probably just happened to have a bad school/set of teachers, but one can only speak from their own experiences.

Oh please, it's not like you were beaten or called names and bullied by teachers.
So big deal - he made all of you stand.
I had a history teacher that used to shout at me to take my coat off the second I walked into the room - before I had a chance to sit down after just walking in from outside where it was raining or something.
He would do this EVERY single time - did I hate the guy? Well, not really.. I might have disliked him a bit - but then again, that's nothing new?
Or how about this same teacher eating carrots very loudly and making very loud phone calls to god knows who while we are in the middle of a test for him.
Or this same teacher deciding that it would be fun to compare how different people wear socks and pass his opinion on it relating to how it would have been viewed in god knows what century.

Or a languages teacher who happily gave us beer (at school) when we were only 15 ...
or the same teacher who would during exams (including GCSEs) stand over the FRONT of your desk peering at what you are writing?

Does this mean that the teachers are disrespecting me/you/someone?

I can go on, but seriously teachers making a point and doing some minor uncalled for things is not serious ...

 

[Caseh]

Oh please, it's not like you were beaten or called names and bullied by teachers.
So big deal - he made all of you stand.
I had a history teacher that used to shout at me to take my coat off the second I walked into the room - before I had a chance to sit down after just walking in from outside where it was raining or something.
He would do this EVERY single time - did I hate the guy? Well, not really.. I might have disliked him a bit - but then again, that's nothing new?
Or how about this same teacher eating carrots very loudly and making very loud phone calls to god knows who while we are in the middle of a test for him.
Or this same teacher deciding that it would be fun to compare how different people wear socks and pass his opinion on it relating to how it would have been viewed in god knows what century.

Or a languages teacher who happily gave us beer (at school) when we were only 15 ...
or the same teacher who would during exams (including GCSEs) stand over the FRONT of your desk peering at what you are writing?

Does this mean that the teachers are disrespecting me/you/someone?

I can go on, but seriously teachers making a point and doing some minor uncalled for things is not serious ...

So teachers want and expect unwavered respect, but can't have the decency to show the students respect in the first place? Well sorry, but I won't respect anyone that isn't willing to give me the same back. I don't care who that may be.
Also, does that mean it's OK for a teacher to do "uncalled for" things, but a student cannot? It works both ways, or neither way. There should be no middle ground.

 

[muon]

I wouldn't class what the dude did as Attempted murder.

Just GBH.

Depends on what the intent was.

If you came up to me, insulted me and then i slit your throat as a reaction, is that murder? Me going for your throat shows clear intent to kill?

The teacher supposedly said things which could be construed as intent and also hit someone on the head with a 2kg object which could very easily cause death. Something a science teacher would be very aware of.

Interesting comment came up in this thread from a teacher

Very tragic for both the boy and the teacher really, that it escalated to this.

For what it's worth, I'll chuck my 2 pence in as a teacher.

I teach in a Ofsted 'Outstanding' school, although our grades aren't phenomenal and we have a higher than average kids on free school meals, with SEN etc. We have kids who are incredibly difficult, regularly isolated, put onto alternative courses - things like that. At worse though they are mildly intimidating, usually just loud, late, frustrating.

I think the kids in his class were not 'bad' kids, the ones that would be excluded or isolated. I think they were more likely to actually be quite bright - and it's those kids that are the worst when they choose not to behave. It's easy enough to coerce the nutters with a detention threat or a bit of shouting, but brighter kids laugh it off and have a strong group mentality. They can quickly round on a teacher, become incredibly intimidating and threatening and know all the buttons to press.

Fortunately, I've never experienced it, but know colleagues in the school who have and have taken time off with stress; they're perhaps victims of the subjects they teach or just lack the authority for it to escalate.

Judging by some of the more positive comments about the teacher, I don't imagine him to be a teacher who has ever lacked authority or the ability to mesmerise a class into working for him - that's certainly the easiest way of maintaining control. He was quite clearly ill.

However, knowing the worst kids in our school, I would never hit one. I'll admit to wanting to thump a couple of them in the gob on several occasions, not that it would actually solve anything. What he's done is inexcusable.

I think people understimate the part in bold above.

As for corporal punishment. Good luck. I wonder how many of these punishments given would stand scrutiny at court. You would have a ridiculous number of lawsuits or give teachers immunity which would be a legal nightmare.

 

[Jeff Lynne]

It's a personal, and interesting subject.

Teaching, is a very stressful and often abusive job. It's not something you'd recommend to the easily offended or people that buckle under pressure.

Society is changing, Children have more rights, in a bad way, You often don't know where you stand with them, they're free (they often get away with it) to abuse you, verbally assault you, and more often then not, physically assault you, throwing stones, kind of anti social behavior.
It's an attitude endemic in the current generation, and isn't going to do well in future life.

I feel sorry for teachers, of which many I know, some have wonderful children and I don't talk or pretend to brush all children with the same paint. Problem classes are awful, but please don't think that a couple of bad classes is what tips teachers, the pressure of the job full stop is what tips them over the edge. Having to put up with **** on a daily basis, having a **** senior management, meeting deadlines, getting children that often aren't capable of a certain achievement to that achievement, and then taking the failure.

Want to know something quite pathetic, several schools I know, won't permanently remove children, who would have been removed a couple of years ago, because they need the money that child provides.

Until, the attitude, and society changes for the good, you'll hear more and more stories about teachers quitting under stress.

I don't support what happened. I however, do understand 100% why people do it. Put yourself in their shoes, how would you of reacted ? would you of reacted quicker to such abusive and stress filled situations, that you face on a daily basis ?

Good post.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was under pressure to return to work prematurely because he was costing the school money by being off sick from his stroke.

This isn't a well man.

 

[Jeff Lynne]

Teachers also took most things directed at them in good spirit.
For instance we had a young (25ish) Maths teacher ... and one day we (15/16 yo at this point) had found a cone somewhere. So someone had brought it into the room without the teacher noticing.
While the guy was writing something on the board someone else got up to go to the bin, and then picked up the cone and put in on the teacher's chair.
Teacher turns around, sees cone ... but take it in good spirits and gets the person to take it outside. Person simply leaves it outside the door though.
Cue me needing to go to the toilet - so on the way back I pick up the cone and put it back on the teacher's desk but this time put the teacher's jacked that is on the back of the chair on top of the cone.
Guy doesn't notice the cone for a while this time - and when he does he again has it removed (by me as one of my friends thought it would be fun to tell him that I put it there).
So I just leave it next door - and someone else tries (and get's caught) bringing it in.

So is the above us targeting a teacher; or us just having a bit of fun and the teacher seeing it for the innocent fun that it is?

I'm picturing that and my interpretation is that the majority of the class would be concentrating on the cone thinking it was funny rather than concentrating on what he or she was trying to teach them.

The teacher maintained his or her dignity in the face of a puerile act to try not to make an issue of it yet you've taken it up a level by bringing it back in.

I'll guess that you can remember clearly the whole cone incident but you can't remember what you were being taught in that lesson!

 

[Jeff Lynne]

So teachers want and expect unwavered respect, but can't have the decency to show the students respect in the first place? Well sorry, but I won't respect anyone that isn't willing to give me the same back. I don't care who that may be.
Also, does that mean it's OK for a teacher to do "uncalled for" things, but a student cannot? It works both ways, or neither way. There should be no middle ground.

I'm sorry but respect is an adult / adult thing, it doesn't work with adults and children. There are certain positions in society that command respect, teachers are one, policemen are another, clergy etc.

Remember, children should be seen and not heard.

 

[Efour]

Wasn't all of them, but a couple of the teachers would talk down to all the student's but not just me. I can even remember one of the times, 1(ONE) person was a couple of minutes late to the the lesson, so the teacher tried to force us all to do the lesson stood up, and actually went round taking the chairs off people.

I have no problem with discipline, but (from my experience, atleast) there are too many power hungry teachers. Possibly, and most probably just happened to have a bad school/set of teachers, but one can only speak from their own experiences.

Sounds fine to me- im sure every school has a "hard" teacher.

I was a good kid at school - in a pretty good school - But i had pure respect for all my teachers. because they were my teachers. Simple as that. Kids think they are equals now. Schools shouldn't be like that.

Those 5-6 years at school shape your opinions and life so much no wonder some kids these days are more cheeky little ****s with no boundaries, that can stab each other over nothing.

 

[RDM]

I'm sorry but respect is an adult / adult thing, it doesn't work with adults and children. There are certain positions in society that command respect, teachers are one, policemen are another, clergy etc.

Respect isn't an adult/adult thing. It needs to start with children and those that are in positions of respect should be granted it automatically but it is then up to them to continue to act in such a way as to deserve it. If a teacher acts in an arbitary way punishing the entire class for the actions of one then they lose respect. Also I am not sure if I could respect someone whose prime method of motivation was fear of punishment.

Remember, children should be seen and not heard.

Are you are parent? It would be horrible if I treated my daughter in that fashion. I would rather not have the repressed victorian attitudes prevelant again thanks.

 

[platinum87]

Respect isn't an adult/adult thing. It needs to start with children and those that are in positions of respect should be granted it automatically but it is then up to them to continue to act in such a way as to deserve it. If a teacher acts in an arbitary way punishing the entire class for the actions of one then they lose respect. Also I am not sure if I could respect someone whose prime method of motivation was fear of punishment.

respect is irrelevent, the only thing that is important is obedience, to keep the fear of punishment constant, and then punish the entire class for stupid reasons constantly until no-one does anything because they end up facing insanely over the top consequences. The only choice left is leave the school or fall in line, and thus it works 100%