A FORMER trainee teacher at Ridgeway School told the Court of a culture of racial tension and indiscipline where teachers were “nervous wrecks”.

Rachel Barker claimed Asian pupils were allowed to get away with flagrant misbehaviour and disrespecting staff and were handed out less severe punishments than their white classmates because bosses feared they might otherwise be accused of racism.

Ms Barker, who worked at the school in Wroughton for three months in 2005, said when she heard a pupil had been attacked at a Swindon school, she “knew instinctively” that it was Ridgeway.

After just one week at the school, Ms Barker said she had formed the view that “I would never allow my children to go to a school like that.”

She said: “There seemed to be a complete lack of respect for the teachers and there was a definite lack of discipline.

“This was obvious when the kids just barged past me from my first day.

“The teachers seemed to hold no power over them.”

She said she remembered seeing one woman teacher crying in the staff room because she could not cope with unruly pupils and added: “I would describe a number of the teachers as nervous wrecks.

“Myself and other members of staff felt as if we did not have any power over the pupils and that we had no way of effectively controlling them,” she said.

“The children seemed to have the upper hand.”

She said that, a few weeks after starting her placement at Ridgeway, she and other staff were told not to hand out any more pupil warnings unless absolutely necessary, because too many had been given out already and that they would “look bad on the pupils’ disciplinary records”

One of her fellow trainee teachers, a former sergeant in the Army, had expressed his “disgust” at the lack of discipline and Ms Barker added: “I remember thinking at the time that, if I could handle the pupils at the Ridgeway School, then I could handle anything that might be thrown at me.”

She told the court that, in her view, Ridgeway was not “secure” from outsiders, particularly the tennis courts area where, she said, fights happened “often”.

Although she accepted the school was a large one, and the headteacher did not want to turn it into “ a prison”, she said she was unaware of any operational CCTV cameras on site, and security at the school left a lot to be desired.

Turning to the group of Asian pupils who called themselves the “Asian Invasion”, Ms Barker said she had heard that they would stand around in groups and leer at and threaten other children.

She added: “Fights would occur on a regular basis at the school. I recall one particular lunchtime when there was virtually a riot on the tennis courts.

“I believe that a gang of Asian pupils had threatened ‘warfare’ against white pupils which culminated in a mass fight between the white and Asian pupils.”

Observing that some members of staff were left “severely shaken” by the incident, she told the court in her witness statement: “I think staff found it relatively easy to cope with the unruly white pupils, but the Asian pupils were in a different league”.

She added: “I think one of the reasons that there were such problems with discipline was because the school did not promote a positive culture of cohesion and integration.

“I feel the school was letting down its pupils, as all that was needed was some education for the pupils in terms of respect and good discipline.

“The Asian pupils at the school were allowed to think of themselves as superior. This was partly the fault of the school as the Asian pupils would never be disciplined or, if they were, they would receive a lesser punishment than the white pupils.

Ms Barker said that even during her short period at the school she could feel the tension increasing between the white and Asian pupils and the school allowed male Asian pupils to completely separate themselves.

She said: “In my opinion, the school did not deal with the problem effectively because they were fearful of being accused of racism.

“After the ‘riot’, I remember the reluctance of the school to contact the police and their insistence to play down what was obviously a racial incident.”

Once she moved onto another school, Ms Barker said: “I could not believe the contrast to Ridgeway.

“When I first heard that a pupil had been attacked at a Swindon school, I knew instinctively that it was Ridgeway that was involved.”

The High Court hearing continues.