Students injured, weapons pulled in Canberra school incidents - ABC Online

Updated October 21, 2013 11:38:10

ACT police have been called to five critical incidents at Canberra schools so far this year.

Documents released under Freedom of Information show several of the critical incidents involved violence and/or weapons.

In February this year, several Canberra High School students were injured when they were physically and verbally assaulted.

Staff were also abused and threatened when they tried to break up the incident.

In March, students at Calwell High School were involved in an altercation involving weapons, blades and other sharp instruments.

Students and teachers broke up the fight and there were no injuries.

There was a similar incident at Harrison School in April.

No details have been released about the other two critical incidents at Woden School and Telopea Park School other than police were involved and the Telopea incident involved injuries.

In all incidents parents were contacted and counselling was provided.

Only public schools are required to release details on their critical incidents, and the Australian Education Union (AEU) says private schools should be forced to provide similar data.

"For any institutions that are government-funded that sort of information should be there if people want to know about it," said AEU ACT secretary Glenn Fowler.

"Otherwise we end up with a skewed picture of what schools are like and uninformed prejudices may be confirmed."

Topics: public-schools, crime, act, canberra-2600

First posted October 21, 2013 08:24:49