New Zealand Student Engagement 2002 Publications
Publication Details
This report provides statistics and analysis on stand-downs and suspensions for the 2002 school year to 31 December 2002.
Author(s): National Operations Division, Ministry of Education
Date Published: March 2003
Summary
This is the fifth report on the system of suspensions and stand-downs in New Zealand schools that was put in place in July 1999 and is the third report for a full school year, the first being for 2000.
Suspensions and stand-downs are part of a broad range of ways in which student behaviour is managed. A stand-down or suspension may represent one of a number of interventions for an individual student. These statistics, therefore, tell only part of the story of how schools successfully manage student behaviour for the vast majority of students. The statistics tell us more about how a school chooses to react to behaviour than they do about how young people are behaving.
A key finding of this report is that during the period 2000 to 2002 the number of suspension cases has stabilised while stand-downs continue to rise. It is interesting to note that, for some behaviours, suspensions dropped while stand-downs rose. It is also interesting to note that 55% of schools had no stand-downs while 75% had no suspensions during 2002.
Since reporting under the current rules began, several initiatives to address disparities have been introduced. One of these, described later in this report, is the Suspension Reduction Initiative (SRI) which was launched in 2001 and aims to reduce Māori suspensions. Secondary schools that have chosen to be part of the SRI recorded a rate of 76 per 1,000 for Māori suspensions in 2000. This has dropped substantially to 48 per 1,000 for 2002. Indications are that all students in these schools are benefiting with an overall drop in the suspension rate from 36 per 1,000 in 2000 to 25 per 1,000 in 2002.
In areas of New Zealand where the Ministry of Education is providing support for specific programmes there is a levelling-off or reduction in the number of suspension cases. Schools in the West Coast region recorded lower rates of stand-downs (from 52 per 1,000 students to 37 per 1,000 students) and suspensions (from 17 per 1,000 students to 13 per 1,000 students). Northland schools continue their positive approach to managing student behaviour with stand-down cases remaining steady when compared with 2001 and suspension cases continuing to decline, from 14 per 1,000 students in 2001 to 12 per 1,000 students in 2002.
With some regions of the country making significant progress towards managing student behaviour in positive ways, helped by individual schools making important changes to their methods of dealing with day to day behaviour challenges, the intent of the stand-down and suspension rules to keep young people in school is being achieved.
- There were no suspensions in 37% of secondary and area schools and fewer than five suspensions in a further 16% of secondary and area schools. Seventy-five per cent of all schools had no suspensions.
- At 1 July 2002 there were 748,084 students attending New Zealand's 2,699 schools - an increase of 2% (14,160 students) since 1 July 2001.
- Stand-downs and suspensions are two of the many ways in which schools manage student behaviour.
- There were 17,912 stand-down cases during 2002, a rate of 25 per 1,000. As some students were stood-down on more than one occasion the number of students stood-down is less than the number of cases.
- There were 4,937 suspension cases in 2002 compared with 4,802 in 2001, a rate of 7 per 1,000 in both years.
- Students in the 13 to 15 year age group made up 62.5% of stand-downs (69 per 1,000). This age group was represented in 71% of suspension cases (22 per 1,000). The rates remain the same as for 2001. At the same time enrolments in this age group increased by just under 6,000, a 4% increase.
- Stand-down and suspension cases dropped significantly in the West Coast region, while suspension cases in Northland continued to drop for the third year.
- The most common reasons for students to be stood down were continual disobedience (26%) and physical assault on other students (22%).
- The most common reasons for students to be suspended were for drugs, including substance abuse (30%), a decrease of 84 from 1,555 in 2001 to 1,471 in 2002, and continual disobedience (25%), an increase of 103 between 2001 and 2002.
- Male, Mäori and 14 year old students continue to be over-represented in stand-down and suspension statistics compared to the population in general. Mäori males were stood-down at a rate of 65 per 1,000 and suspended at a rate of 21 per 1,000 in 2002. The peak age for stand-downs remains 14 years (80 per 1,000).
- Indications are that, where specific interventions are in place, both stand-downs and suspensions have reduced or remain steady. Secondary schools participating in the Suspension Reduction Initiative, for example, have succeeded in reducing the suspension rate for Mäori students from 76 per 1,000 in 2000 to 48 per 1,000 in 2002.
- While about 0.6% of the total New Zealand school population was suspended from school, just 0.2% was expelled or excluded during the period 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2002. The majority of these students returned to a school.
Downloads
- Auckland [MS Word 52KB]
- Bay of Plenty [MS Word 44KB]
- Canterbury [MS Word 44KB]
- Gisborne [MS Word 43KB]
- Hawkes Bay [MS Word 52KB]
- Manawatu-Wanganui [MS Word 44KB]
- Marlborough [MS Word 43KB]
- Nelson [MS Word 43KB]
- Northland [MS Word 44KB]
- Otago [MS Word 43KB]
- Southland [MS Word 43KB]
- Taranaki [MS Word 43KB]
- Tasman [MS Word 43KB]
- Waikato [MS Word 44KB]
- Wellington [MS Word 44KB]
- West Coast [MS Word 43KB]
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