A union wants employers to prosecute parents or pupils who attack teachers. It is also seeking criminal compensation for staff who are victims of assault by children as young as four.

Protests about a rising tide of violence from Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ delegates came the day before Estelle Morris, the Education Secretary, addressed their annual conference in Cardiff.

In her speech, Ms Morris urged local education authorities to prosecute parents who attack teachers.

The conference voted unanimously to demand that councils prosecute anyone who assaults school staff. The union will write to authorities urging them to take out private prosecutions when the Crown Prosecution Service or police refuse to take action.

Some would like to see signs outside schools similar to those on London Underground stations which warn that violent customers will be pursued through the courts.

Ms Morris said: “There is no excuse for attacking teachers. If parents do, then they must be prosecuted. LEAs must work closely with schools to make sure this happens. We will only stop this if we have the will to do it.”

She will emphasise that LEAs have the power to prosecute parents under the 1996 Education Act and that parents who attack teachers must expect to be punished.

The ATL got over 125 complaints from members who suffered physical abuse in their schools last year - mostly by children, although 5 per cent of cases involved parents. Assaults have risen five-fold since 1998.

Brian Waggett, who chairs the union’s member defence committee, said the ATL had sought pound;7,500 criminal injuries compensation after a four-year-old headbutted a female teacher, causing her serious but temporary sight problems. The case was thrown out on the grounds it was an accident.

He has authorised two private prosecutions in the last six months, one involving a London teacher “decked” by a parent at a bus stop, who was irate about a pupil’s detention. He said senior management often discourage staff from reporting assaults to the police, for fear of damaging the school’s reputation.

Lesley Ward, a teacher at Intake primary in Doncaster, said: “The Human Rights Act is being breached daily as it becomes accepted that teachers are expected to put up with being physically or verbally assaulted. In most cases nothing will be done. To many children, teachers are the first figures of authority they encounter. What message are they receiving if the rest of authority seems to be saying ‘it’s OK, it’s only a teacher’?”

The debate took place as a special needs teacher left severely depressed after being attacked by a pupil was awarded pound;190,000 compensation by the High Court.

Judith Waugh of Chigwell, Essex, had to give up her job at the John F Kennedy special school after she was attacked by a 14-year-old boy.

Ms Morris also attacked “feckless” parents and laid out plans for a “discipline summit” to tackle the problem. She also said councils should make more use of orders compelling adults to attend parenting classes.

Mr Waggett, a teacher at Range high school in Sefton in Merseyside, said it was “very simplistic” for Ms Morris to say that all parents were responsible for everything their children did. “Some parents are very responsible and their children are still problematic,” he said.

Much of the dissatisfaction at the conference - represented in an “overwhelming” number of questions submitted by delegates - was over workload, work-life balance, and pay issues.

Delegates voted unanimously in support of a joint resolution due to be discussed by the other classroom unions this week, which reaffirms their commitment to reducing workload and seeking a deal similar to the 35-hours-a-week McCrone package in Scotland. The motion also commits the union to industrial action over workload, if necessary.

Peter Smith, ATL general secretary, told reporters the Education Secretary had “trampled all over a potential consensus” by apparently rejecting a limit on teaching contact hours (in a letter to the School Teachers’ Review Body). “The teacher unions and the local-authority employers are both saying there is a need to rethink teacher contracts. It inevitably implies some limits on class contact time and time spent teaching and time devoted to preparation and marking,” he said.

Mike Moore, ATL executive member, told delegates that all of last year’s progress on cutting workload could be lost if the Treasury did not come up with more cash to support changes, as part of this summer’s spending review.

Hank Roberts, from Copland school, Brent, north London said: “Last year’s joint motion was a warning. This year it must be a declaration of war.”

Bill Hunter, from Reading, scattered the five-section TES of last April 27, containing 9,000 job vacancies, across the stage to illustrate his point about the impact on retention: “This is a crisis and it’s a result of workload.”

And newly-qualified teacher Nick Brown, 24, from Frederick Bough school in Scunthorpe, said he had “no time for a life, never mind a love life”.