Parts of the documents have been concealed but first aid was administered on the teacher, who is believed to have suffered only minor injuries.

The report though shows violence in NSW's public schools has almost doubled over a 12-month period, while the number of students caught with weapons has increased four-fold.

Worryingly, violent incidents ballooned from 1281 in 2018 to 2146 in 2019, the most recent year reported.

Read more: Teachers working nights, weekends and holidays to get everything done

Incidents of drugs in schools remained relatively stable with 336 incidents in 2019.

That figure included one incident in the Wollongong North network, where three students were found on school grounds smoking marijuana.

In another nearby school, six students were caught drinking alcohol on the school premises.

The 2019 Serious Incident Reports 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.

Almost half the 140 incidents reported in the Wollongong, Wollongong North, Lake Illawarra North and Lake Illawarra South principals networks related to violence.

The report covered the period from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019.

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 41 and 22 incident reports respectively, while Lake Illawarra North and Lake Illawarra South recorded 47 and 34 incident reports.

Incidents reported across these networks related to either drugs, misuse of technology, violence, weapons or student welfare.

A NSW Department of Education spokesperson said every school day, teachers and students work and learn safely at over 2200 public schools in NSW.

'Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures show that schools are amongst the safest places in our community and people under 18 are three times safer inside the school gate than outside," the spokesperson said.

"Violence and anti-social behaviour are not tolerated in our schools and any student involved in violence, bringing a weapon to school, or who engages in criminal behaviour at school receive strong disciplinary action and their parents are notified.

"We work closely with NSW Police and parents to respond to incidents involving weapons.

"With a population of more than 800,000 students the overall number of violent incidents remains relatively small, and represents less than one incident per school per year across the entire state."

We depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support.

Subscribe to our newsletters