§ Mr. CoakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) if he will estimate the number of assaults made on teachers by(a) pupils, 295W (b) parents and (c) others in the last academic year; what assessment he has made of the trends in those numbers; and what plans he has to tackle the problem of assaults on teachers; [28979]
(2) if he will estimate the number of times the police were called to deal with incidents in schools in the last academic year; and what assessment he has made of the trend in the number of such incidents. [28980]
§ Ms Estelle MorrisInformation is not collected centrally on either the number of assaults on teachers or the number of times police are called to deal with incidents at schools. We recently issued guidance, 'School Security: Dealing with Troublemakers', to help schools deal promptly and effectively with such difficult incidents. We have also announced a further programme of grants to help improve security in schools, supporting an extra £22 million of spending in 1998–99.