A student grabbed a pair of scissors and threatened to stab a principal, in one of the most serious incidents revealed by the NSW Education Department’s latest incident report.
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The principal, and another student, managed to get away and lock themselves in another room.
Parts of the documents have been concealed but Wollongong police were called and the school was placed in lockdown.
The report has detailed incidents relating to violence, drugs, students welfare, schoolyard safety and security at NSW public schools.
The Department said it had made the incident reports accessible to the public to improve transparency.
The majority of incidents in the Wollongong and Wollongong North principals networks related to violence, accounting for 41 of the 100 issues recorded.
Student welfare issues (35) were the next highest incidents reported.
The Safety and Security Directorate incident report covered the period from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017.
All of the incidents related to students, and some involved teachers and other staff members. In some cases, paramedics and police were called to schoolyards for assistance.
Wollongong and Wollongong North Principals Networks recorded 69 and 31 incident reports respectively during this period.
Incidents reported across these networks related to either drugs, misuse of technology, violence, weapons or student welfare.
The Department said while schools are among the safest places in the community, from time to time, incidents so affect staff and students.
Meantime, earlier this week Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan expressed his alarm at the amount of physical and verbal abuse teachers and principals experience, which he says leads many to leave the profession after three-to-five years.
“The view is that they're not getting the tools that are required to successfully be able to deal with classroom situations, so we need to get them into the classroom earlier,” the minister told 2GB radio on Tuesday.