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G4EBT > SCHOOL 27.10.09 18:17l 146 Lines 5727 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : A51553G4EBT
Read: GUEST DG1NDE DK3HG
Subj: Hull Teacher cleared in court
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Sent: 091027/1307Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:33890 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:A51553G4
From: G4EBT@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : SCHOOL@WW
I mentioned recently about a head teacher on trial for assaulting a pupil.
Cases are occurring with increasing regularity in which teachers with
exemplary records and many years of dedicated service are having their
lives and careers ruined.
Some end up with a criminal record due to ludicrous assault charges for
dealing with unruly pupils. I think most right-minded people would agree
that these cases should never even find their way into court.
A case has just been concluded in Hull, which demonstrates that even if
even found not guilty, teachers suffer untold anguish, due to unruly louts
and unsupportive parents who see their kids as victims - not perpetrators.
A Hull classroom assistant was cleared last week of assaulting a
schoolboy, after a nine-month ordeal. Mark Ellwood, 46, was working at the
David Lister school in Hull when charged with common assault of a
15-year-old boy.
First, a bit about Hull, and the David Lister School.
Hull has much to commend it, but is one of England's most economically
and socially deprived cities. It has a population 250,000, with 57,000
children.
It had a thriving fishing industry that disappeared two generations ago,
and the city failed to regenerate itself economically, resulting in low
aspirations and self-esteem and a high proportion of people living on
welfare benefits with few prospects.
Hull invested heavily to rebuild housing, the city centre and secondary
schools, but there's no point in physical regeneration without social
regeneration.
Hull schools have persistently been at the bottom of the table for results
in the whole of the UK. David Lister is a large secondary (comprehensive)
school with more than 1,200 pupils.
Just one in 10 pupils who sat their GCSEs (General Certificate of
Education, taken at age 16) at the school achieved the Government
"gold standard" of five A* to C grades, including maths and English.
Hence, 90% leave school with no GCSE qualifications acceptable to most
employers, and many leave unable to read, write, or add up properly.
This is a shocking indictment.
The school was issued with a notice to improve by Ofsted - the schools
watchdog last Jan and placed in "special measures" as a failing school.
Councillors feared the 19% drop in this year's GCSE results could be the
nail in the coffin for the school, due to close in 2015 under the city's
flagship £400m "Building Schools For The Future" (BSF) programme.
A councillor said: "When the parents were first told the school was going
to close under BSF, they were told a support plan would be put in place,
but no support ever came and over 40 teachers have left - morale is rock
bottom."
Tough job s a teacher then eh?
But Mr Elwood didn't leave - he stayed, and look where it got him.
News surrounding David Lister came as it was confirmed that just 13% of
pupils at another Hull problem school, the grandly named Kingswood College
of Arts, achieved the required standard in GCSEs this year - a drop from
17% the year before.
So you'd think the Council and the police would be right behind the
teachers, and coming down heavily on parents to do their bit to sort
out their unruly offspring.
No chance.
The police need to get a grip and a sense of proportion.
These kids grow up on tough estates and aren't delicate flowers of youth
to be tenderly nurtured - they need to know the boundaries, to be put in
their place and kept there. If not, it lets down the decent kids, just
because a few in each class think they rule the roost.
Back to the case, which should never have found its way into court:
The boy had sat in Ellwood's classroom playing with his mobile phone and
wearing his outdoor jacket. When Ellwood noticed this he asked the boy to
remove the jacket and put away the phone. The boy said: "I will have you
killed," and threatened to stab him.
Ellwood took the boy out of the classroom, through the corridor and into
the school car park. As he did so, the boy tried to kick him on the shins,
and Ellwood - a former kickboxer, responded by sweeping the boy's legs
from under him.
Any problem with that nifty defensive footwork?
You wouldn't think so.
Yet Ellwood says he was "hung out to dry" and forced to leave his home.
Perhaps he should have dialled 999 called the police and had the boy
charged with threats to kill instead?
That is the direction of travel if parents, school governors and councils
and the police don't come to their senses. (Assuming anyone is misguided
enough to even become a teacher in such challenging schools in the first
place).
The pupil claimed Ellwood violently threw him onto the classroom floor,
but evidence from a teacher in the same classroom showed that wasn't true.
Ellwood said he was "hung out to dry" by authorities during the long
investigation.
Outside the court in Hull he said:
"I lost my job, was removed from my family and faced a criminal
conviction, only to be found not guilty. If the power is in favour of the
pupil, you have not got a hope in hell."
Not wrong there then.
He said Hull city council social services had demanded he move out of his
home in the city suburbs and he was forced to sleep on a gym floor for two
weeks.
Absolute disgrace.
Endemic violence in schools:
Violence against teachers has continued to rise; physical assaults by
schoolchildren on adults now number nearly 18,000 a year. In special
schools, assaults on teachers account for more than 20% of exclusions.
It's enough to turn me into a Daily Mail reader.
Best wishes
David, G4EBT @ GB7FCR
Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Message timed: 12:45 on 2009-Oct-27
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