Teachers raise fears over lack of ASN provision in schools
Nearly half (47%) saying that there are pupils in their school who have been identified as needing specialist provision, but remain in their mainstream school because specialist settings are full.
A similar number said their local authority has reduced the number of places in specialist settings in order to manage budgets.
Almost 400 teachers from Scotland responded to the online survey, which was conducted during February and March 2025.
Almost all said that the workload of teachers and school leaders in their school has increased as a result of underfunding for specialist services for ASN.
More than half (54%) of respondents who teach in specialist or alternative provision said they had been physically assaulted by a pupil in the previous year, with 59% said they had been threatened with physical assault and four in five had experienced verbal abuse.
Nearly half (49%) said they experienced such abuse daily or more than once a day. Two-thirds said the abuse is increasing in severity.
Only 14% said their school always takes appropriate action to address behaviour incidents when they are reported and just 4% said the same about local authorities.
Delegates at NASUWT Scotland's Annual Conference last month called for the Scottish Government and local authorities to fundamentally rethink how they fund, plan and staff ASN provision.
READ MORE: Teachers being 'driven out of schools' as numbers quitting profession surges Why parents of autistic children are turning on Scot Gov's classroom inclusion policy
Matt Wrack, NASUWT Acting General Secretary, said: 'The results of this survey only underline the recent damning report by Audit Scotland which heavily criticised the Scottish Government's failure to adequately fund, plan or resource its presumption of mainstream policy.
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