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Government policy has become a silent architect of classroom violence—shaping conditions through austerity, fragmented guidance, and reactive discipline. By underfunding pastoral care and mental health support, the state leaves schools ill-equipped to address trauma, neurodivergence, and poverty-driven behaviours. Behaviour hubs and attendance drives offer surface-level optics, while deeper systemic neglect festers. Teachers are discouraged from suspending violent pupils, yet given no tools for relational repair. Meanwhile, racially minoritised students—especially girls—are adultified and disproportionately punished, their vulnerability erased by policy silence. In this vacuum, violence becomes not just an incident but a symptom of institutional abandonment.

Across the UK and beyond, violence in classrooms is no longer an aberration—it’s a pattern. Recent studies reveal that over 80% of schools in Scotland report weekly incidents of aggression. In England, nearly 100,000 violent episodes have been logged in just three years, with children as young as seven bringing knives into lessons. Teachers and support staff alike face daily verbal abuse, and many report physical injuries ranging from bruises to broken bones. Some have even been diagnosed with PTSD.

Unions are calling out the inadequacy of current policies. In Gibraltar, for instance, teachers are being discouraged from suspending violent pupils, and restorative approaches are failing to stem the tide. Meanwhile, universities like York and UWS are launching studies to understand the deeper cultural and systemic drivers, however; this will potentially support what many of us already know.