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Friday, June 13, 2014
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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
Know enough to ride in a Lambo? Paul Clark is offering a ride in a Lamborghini to anyone who can tell him who caused $100,000 worth of damage to his property. FULL STORY
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PHOTO TETSURO MITOMO 120614-TM-025
School stand-downs slide BY MYLES HUME
MYLES.H@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
Mid Canterbury schools are trumpeting a dramatic drop in stand-downs as they seek alternatives to deal with problem behaviour. Ministry of Education figures also suggest a significant decline in suspensions and exclusions in the district’s 23 schools – although the true extent of that drop remains difficult to judge. Privacy concerns mean the
ministry does not say how many incidents a school has had if it has had fewer than five, unless it had none at all. Nonetheless, the figures suggest at least 29 pupils were stood down last year compared with at least 127 in 2008. Suspensions - a formal removal while schools decide to terminate enrolment or allow a pupil to stay - have dropped from at least 31 in 2008 to at least 16 last year, while exclusions have aver-
aged about eight per year. Mid Canterbury Principals’ Association president Chris Murphy said overall the figures reflected a change in schools’ mindset and problem behaviour was being dealt with earlier. “I think we are taking a more active approach. In the past schools have taken a more punitive approach and one of those is to have the child out of school, however if you have a child out of school it disrupts their learn-
ing,” he said. He said schools were nipping bad behaviour in the bud, by understanding the root cause and using remedial measures such as restorative justice or isolation from the classroom or playground. “There’s usually two reasons for bad behaviour, one is to get something and the other is to avoid something,” he said. When comparing on a per 1000 pupil basis, Mid Canterbury schools rate better than
the national level, but the figures show continual disobedience, assault on fellow pupils and verbal abuse of staff remain the biggest issues. Ashburton College principal Grant McMillan said the figures were encouraging and although there was a ministry drive for schools to have fewer standdowns, suspensions and exclusions “we wouldn’t refuse to do the right thing to keep the statistics down”. Ph 03 307 7900 to subscribe!
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