THE Dunblane massacre has highlighted as never before the need for better school security, but it comes as a shock to discover that violence is something that teachers face every day - from their pupils and parents.

For a survey of 1,000 teachers in Manchester shows one in seven had been the victim of physical assault, that verbal abuse by children and parents is routine and that most at risk are those in charge of three to seven-year-olds.

And these disturbing findings are backed by at East Lancashire head who talks of how parents storming into classrooms to harangue teachers in front of their pupils now seems to be regarded as normal behaviour.

Clearly, if the dreadful events at Dunblane demonstrate that children must be better protected from violence from outside, then this survey shows that, in the same way, teachers need to be safe from invasions by assailing parents - and, inside school, from assault and abuse by pupils.

It may be that, following the out-of-court settlement of £82,500 record compensation from her employers to a teacher who received lasting injuries from a nine-year-old, education authorities may take more seriously the threat today by one of the main teaching unions to reach more readily for their lawyers unless disruptive or violent pupils are removed from schools. But the frequency of these incidents, as shown up by this survey and underlined at the extreme by Dunblane, indicates that whatever action is needed, it must be implemented urgently.

To improve school security, this newspaper has already suggested measures such as closed-circuit TV and video surveillance, the screening of visitors by "front desk" staff and the installation of entry-limiting devices on external doors.

To that, in view of this disturbing survey, we would add our support to calls for personal alarms for teachers and would expect that the courts would smartly remind parents who bring violence and abuse to the classroom that such behaviour is far from normal or acceptable.

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