Parents' desperate letters to SNP to stop school violence

By HANNAH RODGER, SCOTTISH CHIEF REPORTER Published: 18:46, 23 May 2026 | Updated: 18:52, 23 May 2026 The horrifying scale of classroom violence in Scotland can be revealed today as letters sent directly to education chiefs by fearful parents are detailed for the first time. The dossier of personal accounts shows the daily turmoil that staff, pupils and their parents have endured for half a decade.  Critics have warned that the SNP’s failure to address the problem has allowed it to get worse. The letters, sent directly to the SNP’s former education secretaries Jenny Gilruth and Shirley-Anne Somerville during the last parliamentary term, contain brutal accounts of attacks on teachers, widespread bullying and children so frequently violent that entire classes have had to be evacuated up to twice a day for their own safety. Of the 90 letters, more than half were sent in 2023 when Ms Gilruth, now Deputy First Minister, took over as Education Secretary. Conservative MSP Douglas Lumsden, who obtained the documents through Freedom of Information requests, said: ‘Teachers and pupils are being attacked every day in our schools with no protections or repercussions in place.  'The SNP’s only method of dealing with this growing scourge is restorative discussion, evacuating classrooms and treating victims like they’re the ones to be punished.’ The number of recorded incidents of violence against school staff has soared by 55 per cent in two years, with more than 35,000 being recorded across Scotland last year.  Letters sent directly to the SNP’s former education secretaries Jenny Gilruth and Shirley-Anne Somerville contain brutal accounts of attacks on teachers and widespread bullying Former education secretary, Jenny Gilruth, who is now Deputy First Minister In a recent exchange from January this year, a grandmother and grandfather said their grandchild had told them ‘stories of the violence, both physical[ly] and mentally, your education system exposes them to by these classroom disruptors’. The couple said: ‘The responsibility for taking action on that is down to you and your peers.’ Ministers were asked to intervene in a range of horrific incidents including in one case where a ‘heartbroken’ mum told of how the abuse suffered by their child was described as a ‘non-event’ by their school. In 2023, another parent told of the situation reaching ‘boiling point’ with their child experiencing ‘continual bullying’, and said: ‘Our children and teachers are not safe from violence, they are not properly equipped to deal with it due to inadequate policies.’ Even the parents of a primary school teacher were prompted to write to Ms Gilruth when the staff member was left ‘dripping blood’ after an attack, warning that the government’s lack of investment in schools was going to end in someone being ‘seriously hurt’. They said that children were being ‘deprived of teaching’ and the government had ‘starved local authorities of funding which could be used for teaching assistants, nurture room staff and smaller class sizes’. In August last year another desperate parent told of how their child’s classroom had been ‘evacuated on a daily basis, if not twice a day’ due to violence. Mr Lumsden said: ‘This exposes the SNP’s shameful weakness on classroom discipline.’ A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: ‘Any form of violent or abusive behaviour in school is completely unacceptable.’ No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.