Teacher has leg shattered and kneecap broken in classroom attack by 10yr old boy

A teacher's leg was shattered and her kneecap broken in a classroom attack by a 10-year-old pupil.
Diane Whitehead, 53, had to have surgery to pin her leg back together after she was karate kicked by the out-of-control boy.
She could be off work for more than a year recovering from her injuries.

Shockingly, it is the second time Mrs Whitehead has been attacked - two
years ago she suffered two broken ribs in an assault by another pupil.
Last night union bosses called for more protection for teachers after a
rise in the number of assaults in the classroom in recent years.

Mrs Whitehead’s parents Gordon and Wendy Mann, of Walton, Wakefield said
the school was a local-authority-run centre for children with special
needs.
But they said that should not mean that teachers doing their job should
be put at risk from assault from disruptive and violent pupils.

Chris Keates, Acting General Secretary of the NASUWT said no one should go to work with the expectation of being assaulted
Mr Mann, 77, said: ‘The boy was being very disruptive during class and had been told to calm down several times.
He was creating a problem. It escalated and my daughter and another teacher tried to restrain him, as they are trained to do so.
‘He then head-butted the other teacher and knocked her out. He then
whipped round with a karate type kick on my daughter’s leg, breaking it
badly.
‘She screamed out in pain and immediately fell to the floor. She
couldn’t move. The pain was unbearable. An ambulance was called and the
police attended.

‘The kick went up her leg and shattered the bone. It forced the leg bone
straight up into her knee. It was so badly broken that the doctors who
first examined her thought she had been involved in a car or motorcycle
crash.’
Mr Mann said: ‘Two years ago my daughter had two ribs broken by another
pupil at the school. But Diane is the type of person who just wants to
help pupils. We as a family are more angry about what happened than she
is.’
The incident happened on January 7 at the Burwood School in Orpington,
Kent - a school for children with special needs whose mainstream
schooling has broken down.

The two teachers were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital with the other woman suffering from bruising and a facial injury.
Mr Mann said his daughter, a mother-of-two who studied at Greenwich
University and can speak four languages, would almost certainly return
to the school despite the horrific injuries she suffered.


‘The other children who witnessed the attack were left quite traumatised by it all.’

The 10-year-old boy has been bailed until mid-February.

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