Grade 8 punches bride-to-be

2008-03-11 23:38

Marisa Phillips

Welkom - Where is it going to end? asks a woman teacher who was punched in the face by one of her Grade 8 pupils.

Chantel Harvey, 27, who has been a teacher at Welkom High School since 2005, reprimanded the boy because he wouldn't sit down at his desk.

"I also warned him not to write on his desk. The boy was arrogant the whole time.

"I asked him to leave the class and not to return until I had spoken to his parents."

The boy, who is about a head taller than Harvey, kept back-chatting and she threw a small clock that had been standing on his desk on to the floor.

"I walked back to the front of the classroom.

Pressed panic button

"He came towards me and shoved me in the face. I pushed him away and he punched me in the face."

Harvey said she had been so shocked that she had not known what to do.

"I pressed the panic button and asked him why he did it. He said it was because I had broken his clock."

Some of the girls in the class began to cry and Harvey went to the principal's office with the boy. Afterwards she went home.

Harvey is getting married in three week's time, but her doctor said her black eye should be something of the past by then.

- Volksblad