Teachers in England say the behaviour of pupils in their classrooms is getting worse.

In a BBC survey of 9,000 primary and secondary teachers, almost one in five of them said that they had been hit by pupils this year.

Compared to two years ago, more teachers said pupils were fighting. Nearly a third of them said they had witnessed pupils fighting in the same week that they responded to the survey.

Lorraine Meah, who is a supply teacher for primary schools in the Midlands, said: “You’ll get three or four children in your class displaying challenging behaviour. That’s hard to deal with when you’ve got a class of 30.”

Some experts say that classroom violence has become worse since the Covid-19 pandemic.