{"id":463703,"date":"2026-06-06T08:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T08:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/463703\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T08:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T08:40:14","slug":"ministry-of-education-supports-coromandel-school-after-toilet-block-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/463703\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministry of Education supports Coromandel school after toilet block assault"},"content":{"rendered":"

Freke said disciplinary decisions related to the incident were the \u201cresponsibility\u201d of Mercury Bay Area and its board.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ministry expects all schools to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of students and to respond appropriately to incidents. We remain available to support the school if needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DirectorDirector of education for Waikato, Marcus Freke, says the school is responsible for any disciplinary processes arising from the incident. Photo \/ Marcus Freke<\/p>\n

Police confirmed they made inquiries into the attack and referred the file to Youth Aid, with a youth process to be undertaken in relation to two boys.<\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s mother told Stuff on Thursday she was \u201cabsolutely furious\u201d about the incident, which she said had left the teenager \u201cvery anxious and nervous and worried\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said one of the boys had admitted to targeting her son\u2019s leg as they punched, kicked and stomped on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother boy who was involved said, \u2018You get him and I\u2019ll video it\u2019, but we haven\u2019t found any video evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mother said her older child had also been assaulted during their time at the local school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a 19-year-old who was beaten outside the M\u0101ori room when she was 15. There\u2019s definitely a history.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was concerned to have not been involved in the school\u2019s disciplinary process against the bullies, with one of the boys briefly attending school again after the attack.<\/p>\n

\"MercuryMercury Bay Area School principal Ross Dunn says the school is dedicated to providing a safe environment for students after the recent incident<\/p>\n

School principal Ross Dunn told the Herald the implication it is doing nothing about the incident is \u201csimply not correct\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the incident in the toilet block, we took immediate steps to increase supervision in that area and have been reviewing both our procedures and physical environments to see where improvements can be made,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever there are allegations of assault, bullying or intimidation, they are immediately and thoroughly investigated and addressed through our school processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said schools were barred from discussing individual students, disciplinary action or support plans by the Privacy Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat can sometimes create the impression that no action has been taken when, in fact, significant work is happening behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunn said the school\u2019s focus would continue to be on providing a safe environment for rangatahi.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to work closely with students, staff and wh\u0101nau to address concerns and support the wellbeing of everyone in our school community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freke said disciplinary decisions related to the incident were the \u201cresponsibility\u201d of Mercury Bay Area and its board.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,17704,34609,1972,13912,22506,84,52096,42,671,101,26981,28874,43,1118,4062,6649,9631,30508,5163,1361,29889,40,38,41,39,20424,102],"class_list":["post-463703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-assault","tag-backed","tag-block","tag-broken","tag-coromandel","tag-education","tag-handling","tag-headlines","tag-incident","tag-left","tag-leg","tag-ministry","tag-news","tag-of","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-student","tag-supports","tag-teen","tag-that","tag-toilet","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-violent","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}