Not suggesting that a pre-adolescent getting physical is just kids being kids, or in any way acceptable for a teacher to have to deal with. Kick em out for a month on the first offense and the rest of the year on the second, if it were up to me. (Don't ask about the third.)
But if you call a 50 pound grade schooler leaving bruises an assault that dilutes the term so as to have no real meaning when applied to a 200 pound high schooler who's a genuine threat to life and limb.
It took everything I had to wrestle that broom away from that
kid, and if he HAD hit another child in the head with the swings he was taking, that child could easily have ended up with brain damage, or God forbid, died! :-( To me, yes, that was an assault, although it was ‘blown off’ because he was ‘mainstreamed’ and ‘it doesn’t count as an attack’ because ‘he couldn’t help himself’....I know there are times when kids kick or bite or pull hair, all a normal part of growing up, and I don’t consider those types of things “assaults”, but just because a kid is young, believe me, they can still do a lot of damage to the teacher and the other students, unfortunately.