Other reasons for the compensation payouts were bullying and discrimination.

Among the injuries include a teacher who was awarded £220,000 in personal injury compensation when she suffered an accident at work. She was in the stationery cupboard and a box fell on her head.

According to figures released by the NUT, 16 of their members have received compensation for injuries such as slip and trips. One such teacher received £8,500 after she slipped on ice in the car park at the school where she worked.

Another teacher from London received a sum of £80,000 after she was knocked over in a corridor and injured her knee and her wrist.

Personal injury compensation payouts are often far more than those received in the case of criminal injury.

One of the most bizarre of these personal injury compensation cases was when a teacher received £1,750 because a pupil aimed a laser pen at her eye.

The NASUWT general secretary, Chris Keates, placed the blame firmly on the schools for the huge sums paid out in personal injury compensation. She stated:

Millions of pounds of public money is being paid out to people who quite rightly deserve that compensation, but are for incidents that could have been preventable.

The Campaign for Real Education’s Nick Seaton added:

No one would deny teachers money when they have been genuinely injured but the idea of making so many claims -often for quite minor incidents – does seem just crazy.