New Zealand Student Engagement 2001 Publications
Publication Details
This report provides statistics and analysis on stand-downs and suspensions for the 2001 school year to 31 December 2001.
Author(s): National Operations Division, Ministry of Education
Date Published: April 2002
Summary
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.
Since reporting under the current rules began, several initiatives to address disparities have been introduced. Several of these are described later in this report. The impact these initiatives are having on stand-down and suspension statistics is now becoming evident.
A key finding of this report is that while stand-down cases have increased by 220, suspension cases have decreased by 306 compared to 2000. This is a notable reversal of the trend to date. Clearly, changes in how schools manage student behaviour have an impact.
Indications are that 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 Gisborne region have, for example, reduced the number of suspension cases from 10 per 1,000 in 2000 to 5 per 1,000 in 2001. Similarly Gisborne schools have reduced stand-down cases from 31 per 1,000 to 24 per 1,000. Northland, Canterbury and Nelson schools also reduced suspensions significantly.
- At 1 July 2001 there were 733,924 full-time equivalent (FTE) students attending New Zealand's 2,718 schools - an increase of 0.6% (4,235 students) since 1 July 2000.
- Stand-downs and suspensions are two of the many ways in which schools manage student behaviour.
- While the number of stand-downs rose slightly, the number of suspensions dropped.
- Students in the 13 to 15 year age group made up 62.5% of stand-downs (down from 10,786 for 2000 to 10,718 for 2001). This age group was represented in 72% of suspensions (down from 3,696 in 2000 to 3,452 in 2001). At the same time enrolments in this age group increased by about 4,000.
- Stand-downs and suspensions dropped significantly in the Gisborne region.
- There were 17,141 stand-down cases during 2001. This is 220 more than for 2000. As some students were stood-down on more than one occasion the number of students stood-down is less than the number of cases.
- The most common reasons for students to be stood down were continual disobedience (25%) and physical assault on other students (24%).
- There were 4,802 suspension cases in 2001 compared with 5,108 in 2000.
- The most common reasons for students to be suspended were for drugs, including substance abuse (32%) and continual disobedience (23%).
- Boys and Maori students continue to be over-represented in stand-down and suspension statistics, compared to the population in general.
- Indications are that, where specific interventions are in place, both stand-downs and suspensions have reduced.
- 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 2001 to 31 December 2001. The majority of these students returned to a school.
- There were no suspensions in 14% of secondary schools and fewer than five suspensions in a further 22% of secondary schools.
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