Caldicot School: Striking teachers issue pupil blacklist

Staff at Caldicot School have held three days of action over classroom abuse since September

Teachers striking over violence in the classroom have given a school a list of pupils they refuse to teach.

Staff at Caldicot School, Monmouthshire, have held three days of action over the matter since September.

They said the school had failed to address concerns, stretching back to 2019, over physical and verbal abuse from pupils. 

Monmouthshire council has been approached for comment regarding the blacklist.

The council said it was disappointed efforts to resolve the matter had not worked, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

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In September, teaching union NASUWT said 85% of its members had voted to take strike action over the matter.

It also said 92% had supported action short of striking, which included the refusal to teach pupils deemed as posing a risk to staff. 

NASUWT confirmed it had told the school there are named pupils its members were refusing to teach. 

One mum, who claimed her 13-year-old daughter was among those blacklisted, said her child was "disruptive" but had never been violent.

"It is soul destroying and she is not a danger to anyone," she said.

"I support the school and do everything in my power to help but I can't support teachers picking and choosing who they will teach," the mum, who asked not to be named, added.

"How can a union have her name on a list when they don't know her or know anything about her? 

"Because she can't conform and isn't perfect, does that mean she has no right to education for the rest of her life?" 

Concerns over behaviour at the school are understood to stretch back several years

She said her daughter was on a waiting list to seen an educational psychologist and had been verbally, but not physically abusive to teachers.

She added the school had never tried to "get to the bottom of it".

The most recent strike action by members of the NASUWT and NEU teaching unions saw the school close to pupils on Wednesday.

In July Gwent's Education Achievement Service, which supports schools and council education departments, held a two-day review that found the behaviour of some pupils at Caldicot School put learning at risk.