School stand-downs for fighting and assault hit 11-year peak

NZ Herald 29 August 2018
Family First Comment: As predicted. Nobody should be surprised by these stats – and they will only get worse as we promote children ‘rights’, undermine the authority of parents, teachers & police, and demonise ‘discipline’.
“The main cause is physical assaults on other students, which have jumped from 4.9 stand-downs for every 1000 students in 2015 to 7.2 per 1000 last year, the highest rate since 2006.

More students are being stood down or kicked out of schools for fighting and assault, as schools struggle to cope with children of P-addicted parents and social problems like fetal alcohol syndrome.

An expert also warns that half of all students being expelled or excluded from school are on the autism spectrum, and noisy multi-teacher classrooms might be partly to blame.

After falling for a decade up to 2015, the rates of stand-downs, suspensions and exclusions from schools have all risen again in each of the past two years.

The main cause is physical assaults on other students, which have jumped from 4.9 stand-downs for every 1000 students in 2015 to 7.2 per 1000 last year, the highest rate since 2006.

Post Primary Teachers Association president Jack Boyle said violence and fighting which might once have been hidden, such as a brawl last week at Papakura’s Rosehill College, were now being posted on social media where school principals could not ignore them.

Principals’ Federation president Whetu Cormick said principals were being forced to stand down or excluded students because they were not getting the funds they needed to employ extra teacher aides, psychologists and other specialists.
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