Exclusions and expulsions from school

Indicator Description

Age-standardised proportion of students enrolled who are excluded or expelled from school.

What We Have Found

Why This Is Important

Quantity of instruction or potential 'opportunity to learn' strongly influences student outcomes.  The New Zealand Smithfield study found student attendance during Year 11 to be one of the most significant variables influencing student achievement in senior secondary school. Hattie (1999) reported instructional quantity to have the fourth highest effect size (.84) of any instructional variable.  The practices of exclusion and expulsion interrupt, or cut short, potential opportunity to learn at school.

Following a suspension, the Board of Trustees decides how to address the student’s misbehaviour. The boards can either lift the suspension (with or without conditions), extend the suspension (with conditions), or terminate the student's enrolment at the school.

If the student is aged under 16, the board may decide to exclude him or her from the school, with the requirement that the student enrols elsewhere.  This decision should be arrived at only in the most serious cases.  If the student is aged 16 or over, the board may decide to expel him or her from the school, and the student may enrol at another school.  Again, this decision should be arrived at only in the most serious cases.

Exclusions and expulsions may lead to these students:

• accessing Correspondence Schooling, where there may be fewer direct learning supports entering
• entering Alternative Education provisions, where there may not be access to highly trained teaching staff
• dropping out of the education system.

International research emphasises the importance of pro-active partnerships with parents and a strategy focused on both achievement and behaviour.  Approaches that are focused only on disciplinary or pastoral responses have been found to be ineffective for positive outcomes for the students involved in U.K. and Australian research.

How We Are Going

The rate of exclusions and has remained relatively constant over the last seven years.  In 2007, the age-standardised exclusion rate was 2.3 students per 1,000, the same as in 2001.  The age-standardised expulsion rate in 2007 was also the same as the rate in 2001.

Age-standardised exclusion rates, by ethnic group (2000 to 2007)

Māori students have the largest rate of exclusions.  In 2007, the age-standardised exclusion rate for Māori students (5.0 students per 1,000) was 47% higher than the rate for Pasifika (3.4 students per 1,000), and 4 times as high as that for NZ European (1.3 students per 1,000).

Age-standardised expulsion rates, by ethnic group (2000 to 2007)

Pasifika had the highest age-standardised expulsion rate (4.1 students per 1,000), 17% higher than the rate for Māori (3.5 students per 1,000), and 3.1 times higher than the rate for NZ European (1.3 students per 1,000).  The age-standardised exclusion and expulsion rates for Asian students are the lowest for all ethnic groups.

As a result of a rising suspension rate, Pasifika students have been a focus of the Student Engagement Initiative (SEI) since July 2006.  The evidence suggests that this approach has so far been successful in helping to reduce both exclusions and expulsions among Pasifika students, with 17% and 42% reductions respectively from 2006 to 2007, after substantial increases for both measures from 2003 to 2006.

There is a clear correlation between the socio-economic mix of the school the student attended and age-standardised exclusion rates.  Schools in the lowest quintile (deciles 1 and 2) draw their students from communities with the highest degree of socio-economic disadvantage.  In 2007, students from these lowest quintile schools were 4.5 times more likely to be excluded from school than students in the highest quintile (deciles 9 and 10).  When considering age-standardised exclusion rates by quintile the general pattern for the different ethnic groups remains, albeit less clearly.  Age-standardised exclusion rates were highest for Māori and Pasifika in each quintile, except in quintile 1 schools where the European/Pākehā rate was higher than that of Pasifika.

Age-standardised exclusion rates, by ethnic group and school quintile (2007)

The relationship between school quintile and age-standardised expulsion rates is similar to that for exclusions, though is less marked.  Students from quintile 1 schools were 3.1 times more likely to be expelled from school than students in the highest quintile schools.

The formal removal of students from school is principally a male problem.  Over three-quarters of exclusions and expulsions are for male students (77% of both exclusions and expulsions).

Where To Find Out More

To obtain information about other forms of student disengagement, consider indicators:

• Stand-downs and Suspensions from school
• Truancy from school
• Early leaving exemptions

The Ministry of Education has established an Iterative Best Evidence Synthesis Programme to systematically identify, evaluate, analyse, synthesise and make accessible, relevant evidence linked to a range of learner outcomes. Evidence about what works for this indicator can be found in:

• Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling: Best Evidence Synthesis
• The Complexity of Community and Family Influences on Children's Achievement in New Zealand: Best Evidence Synthesis

References

Alton-Lee, A. (2003). Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling: Best Evidence Synthesis. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Biddulph, F., Biddulph, J. and Biddulph, C. (2003). The Complexity of Community and Family Influences on Children's Achievement in New Zealand: Best Evidence Synthesis. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Hattie, J. (April, 1999). Influences on student learning. Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Auckland, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Hughes, D. et al. (1999). Do Schools Make a Difference?: Hierarchical Linear Modelling of School Certificate Results in 23 Schools: The Smithfield Project, Phase Three: Eighth Report to the Ministry of Education.

Partington, G. (2001). Student suspensions: The influence on students and their parents. Australian Journal of Education, 45, (3), 323-340.

U.K. Office of Standards in Education, (2001). Improving Attendance and Behaviour in Secondary Schools: Strategies to Promote Educational Inclusion. London: Office for Standards in Education.

Related Pages on Education Counts

The Student Engagement data collection page provides links to data, publications and indicators based on that collection.