KEY POINTS:
A Cambridge Middle School teacher has a bruised eye and a middle-aged colleague has an injured wrist and smashed glasses after they were slapped and hit by a 13-year-old student.
The teachers - both female - were attacked after they tried to intervene when the girl started slapping and hitting a Year 8 student.
The elder teacher has lodged a complaint with the police after spending a day off work recovering.
The girl's teenage victim was sworn at, slapped across the face and kicked twice in the knee.
Principal Ross Tyson said the attacked student had been both "friends and enemies of the other girl for a long time". The assailant has been stood down from school until Monday, when the board of trustees will decide whether to exclude her.
Mr Tyson said he copped abuse from the girl's elderly female caregiver when he told her of the incident, apparently because he had waited 90 minutes before giving her the news.
The attack has prompted Mr Tyson to call on the Ministry of Education to begin funding school guidance counsellors for middle, intermediate and primary schools because of the increasing burden falling on teachers.
"In general too many principals are putting up with abusive parents because we are not accepting the blame for their kiddies. They are taking their frustrations out on us."
Mr Tyson said it should not be part of the job but schools were sometimes forced to remove students for safety reasons.
"Last year I had a 12-year-old in my office ... I was spat at and told my lights would be smashed out.
"He had come from Tauranga, where he had been kicked out of a school there, and was staying here with Dad. Dad has now gone to prison."
Sergeant Gordon Grantham of the Cambridge police said investigations were continuing into Tuesday's incident.
He described the behaviour of the attacker as "totally unacceptable in any environment, let alone a school" and commended the teachers for attempting to restrain her.
However, the girl had yet to be spoken to, and no arrest had been made.
