Stand-downs and suspensions from school

Indicator Description

Age-standardised proportion of students enrolled who receive a stand-down or are suspended from school.

What We Have Found

Māori students have the highest rate for suspensions and stand-downs, though measures such as the Suspension Reduction Initiative have helped to reduce the overall Māori suspension rate by 25% since 2000.

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 (0.84) of any instructional variable.  The practices of stand-down and suspension cut short, or interrupt, potential opportunity to learn at school.

While stand-downs and suspensions impact on actual opportunity to learn they are also associated with a wide range of concerning youth behaviours including drug and alcohol abuse and violence that are disruptive to the learning of the individuals concerned and disruptive and unsafe for peers in the school community.  Suspensions 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 incidence of stand-downs and suspensions has increased over the last eight years, from an age-standardised rate of 33.9 students per 1,000 in 2000 to 35.9 students per 1,000 in 2007, an increase of 5.9%.  However, for the first time since 2001, both the stand-down and suspension rates have declined from the previous year.

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

The age-standardised suspension rate has decreased by 17% since 2000 (7.9 students per 1,000 in 2000 compared with 6.6 students per 1,000 in 2007), including a 6.1% reduction from 2006 to 2007. In contrast, the age-standardised stand-down rate increased from 26.0 students per 1,000 in 2000 to 31.3 students per 1,000 in 2006, but has decreased by 6.4% from 2006 to 29.3 students per 1,000 in 2007.

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

Māori students have the highest rates of suspensions and stand-downs.  In 2007, the age-standardised suspension rate for Māori students (14.4 students per 1,000) was 65% higher than Pasifika (8.7 students per 1,000), and 3.6 times as high as European/Pākehā (4.0 students per 1,000).  Similarly, the age-standardised stand-down rate for Māori students (55.3 students per 1,000) was 47% higher than Pasifika (37.5 per 1,000), and 2.6 times as high as European/Pākehā (21.0 students per 1,000).  Both the suspension and stand-down rates for Asian students are the lowest in New Zealand.

There is a clear correlation between the socio-economic mix of the school the student attended and age-standardised suspension rates.  Schools in the lowest quintile (deciles 1 and 2) draw their students from communities with the highest degree of socio-economic disadvantage.  Students from these schools are 4.9 times more likely to be suspended from school than students in the highest quintile (deciles 9 and 10).

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

When considering age-standardised suspension rates by quintile the general pattern for the different ethnic groups largely remains.  Age-standardised suspension rates are highest for Māori and Pasifika in each quintile, except in quintile 1 schools where the European/Pākehā rate is higher than that of Pasifika.

Similar patterns noted above for suspensions also occur between school quintile and age-standardised stand-down rates.

In an effort to counter the disproportionately high number of Māori suspensions, the Suspension Reduction Initiative was established in 2001.  This initiative has since been integrated into the Student Engagement Initiative (SEI), a programme designed to reduce truancy and early leaving exemptions, as well as suspensions.  The SEI initially involved working with 65 secondary schools with historically high suspension rates for Māori.  An additional 78 schools became part of the SEI from 2002 to 2007, including some composite and primary schools, while some of the original schools have now left the initiative.

The SEI has been successful in reducing suspension rates among the original cohort of SEI schools, with the age-standardised rate for these schools dropping from 35.0 students per 1,000 in 2000 to 18.3 students per 1,000 in 2007, a reduction of 48%.  This compares with a slight increase in the overall age-standardised suspension rate for secondary schools which have never been part of the SEI over the same period.  There is evidence, however, of the programme’s effectiveness in these schools tailing off, with relatively less reduction in suspension rates since 2004.

For Māori and European/Pākehā students in the original cohort of SEI schools, the overall age-standardised suspension rates have decreased by 59% and 50% respectively since 2000.  This has helped contribute to 25% and 22% reductions in the age-standardised rates of suspensions for all Māori and European/Pākehā students respectively since 2000.

As a result of their rising suspension rate, Pasifika students have been a focus of the SEI since July 2006.  The same approach that was used to reduce Māori suspensions has been used to reduce Pasifika suspensions, with schools with high Pasifika suspension rates being able to work with the Ministry of Education to implement strategies to reduce their suspension rates.  The evidence suggests that this approach has so far been very successful, with the age-standardised suspension rate for Pasifika students in SEI Schools having declined by 29% from 2006 to 2007, contributing to a 17% decrease for all Pasifika students.  The strategy had also lead to a 16% reduction in the age-standardised stand-down rate for all Pasifika students from 2006 to 2007.

 

Age-standardised suspension rates for secondary schools, by Student Engagement Initiative (SEI) status (2000 to 2007)

Male students receive stand-downs and suspensions far more frequently than female students.  In 2007, the male age-standardised suspension rate was 2.6 times that of females, while the age-standardised stand-down rate for males was 2.4 times higher than the female rate. 

Stand-down and suspension rates, by age (2007)

The majority of both stand-downs and suspensions occurred for students aged 13 to 15, with 62% and 68% of total stand-downs and suspensions respectively. For both measures the peak age was 14 years, with rates of 87.7 students per 1,000 for stand-downs and 23.0 per 1,000 for suspensions.  Hence, analysis is undertaken using age-standardised rates.

Continual disobedience (27.5%), physical assault on other students or staff (23.8%), and drugs or substance abuse (20.1%) were the three leading reasons for student suspensions in 2007.

Where To Find Out More

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

• Truancy from school
• Exclusions and expulsions
• 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.