Another male teacher, 53 year old  Steve Hose who teaches maths, has been stabbed by a student with a knife whilst teaching. He has two daughters

The assault allegedly took place in front of a class of 24 students at Te Puke High School in the Western Bay of Plenty at 11am today:

“Tauranga police confirmed that they were speaking to the 13-year-old after a male teacher at Te Puke High School was stabbed this morning.

The teacher is currently being treated at Tauranga Hospital. His injuries are not life-threatening.

Ambulance officers described the weapon involved in the attack as a small knife, reports Newstalk ZB.

Te Puke High School Principal Alan Liddle told media, at a press conference at the school just before midday, that the teacher had worked at the school for eight years.

Mr Liddle would not name the teacher.

Police had arrested the student involved and were investigating the incident further, Mr Liddle said…” (source)

As the day progressed later reports revealed:

“The teacher was just sitting there helping the students and then the bell rang, he just came over and stabbed him in the back four times,” the student said.”

For more on this story see NZ teachers need more power to protect themselves.

Schools usually work very hard to keep adverse stories out of the news, incidents such as these can have a damaging effect on the school’s reputation and its ability to attract students and staff, especially those from abroad. It seems that students get stood down if they speak to the press. This from a thread on Topix:

“i actually go to te puke i was in the classroom underneth and it wasnt that bad geeezzz ! and that reporters shouldnt ask students what happened . ask the princepals we can get stood down if we say anything .”

so how do you stab someone not badly
ffs it was a school kid
whats he doing stabbing anyone
was he just innocently walking round with a knife in his hand and the bad teacher ran into it”

The stabbing attracted a swift reaction on the TradeMe community message board too with one person commenting

“i was in the school an hour before picking up a car anyway turns out the lowlife scum lives in manoweka (Manoeka) with the rest of the lowlifes. and your right hes in a “family conference” now to discuss his how tough his poor life is. bring back the cane and decent parents.”

A few days later another person added:

i might also add that the teacher was stabbed 4 times in the neck not the shoulder. My kids go to tpk high and everday there is a bashing of some kind or an organised beating happening…same as the burning down of the buildings last year, that was organised crime and the school knew it was going to happen…”

For more about Te Puke and Manoweka read this thread on Trademe “What’s Te Puke like ?”

its full of gangs…graffiti everywhere…..drugs…..the main street isnt safe to walk down…even during the day…..

Very few people outside of the country know about the violence that takes place in New Zealand’s schools or that hundreds of teachers are assaulted every year.

777 teachers were assaulted at work during 2008/9,  442 of them required ACC funded treatment for their injuries.

Among the injured is a male teacher who was stabbed in the back by a student during a Japanese lesson at Avondale College in Auckland, a 17 year old student was convicted for the attack. Read another of our posts to find out why Racial Sensitivity May Have Caused Classroom Stabbing, March 2009:

“Despite allegations that are students were told not to speak to the media on threat of expulsion further details are leaking out about the shocking classroom stabbing yesterday of teacher David Warren at Avondale College. A 17 year old student at the college Tae Won Chung appeared in court today and was denied bail…”

For more developments on this story see: ‘Bullying to blame’ for Te Puke Teacher stabbing“, 12 May 2010