Under the proposal, staff could use \u201creasonable force\u201d to remove a student who repeatedly refused directions to leave a classroom, including after the matter had been escalated to a dean or senior leader.<\/p>\n
Act also proposed legal protection for staff who used \u201creasonable and proportionate\u201d physical restraint to prevent harm or the destruction of property.<\/p>\n
Abercrombie told NZME the policy was \u201codd\u201d and physical restraint was only used as a last resort.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo teacher is asking for more physical restraint power. This feels like a corporal punishment sort of vibe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDisruption is occurring, but what we need is more learning support, guidance counsellors, mental health support in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cDragging a child out of a class is not going to solve the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry acknowledged some children had genuine reasons for poor behaviour, but argued those reasons were being applied too broadly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, let\u2019s be honest, there are a lot of little s***s in classrooms, and we need to address that if we\u2019re going to lift education standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Act policy included mandatory stand-down or suspension for any students who assaulted another student, teachers and staff member.<\/p>\n
Should the assault cross \u201ca criminal threshold\u201d, it would be referred to police.<\/p>\n
Abercrombie warned the proposal was a \u201cslippery slope\u201d, saying it risked putting teachers and students at risk, particularly if physical force was used on neurodiverse students.<\/p>\n
He pointed to the use of school isolation rooms, which were banned in 2017, saying: \u201cWe already had issues with isolation about a decade ago, and that was horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the policy, removed students would go to a \u201csupervised, staffed space\u201d like an \u201cexisting pastoral office, deans\u2019 room or learning support room\u201d. The policy did not detail which staff would be supervising the students.<\/p>\n
Parents or guardians would also be required to attend a meeting if their child was responsible for violence, threats, intimidation or destruction of property.<\/p>\n
Those who failed to engage could be referred to the Ministry of Education, Oranga Tamariki or police.<\/p>\n
Parents who did not attend the meeting could face fines of up to $300 for a first offence, rising to $3000 for repeat offences.<\/p>\n
Amos said a more proactive, preventive approach that invested in schools and young people would help reduce challenging behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best way to respond to these situations is by having really good relationships with our young people and taking a restorative approach, because every situation is different.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur job as school leaders is to keep our young people in school, not push them out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want them there to feel connected and I want them there to be learning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the proposal, staff could use \u201creasonable force\u201d to remove a student who repeatedly refused directions to leave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[169841,23503,4763,127489,84,28164,6204,2082,5760,26477,7494,1446,111,43,139,69,3766,7234,2170,8997,28875,1519,19098,6302,4062,6649,8207,1516,3767,26697],"class_list":["post-556535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-169841","tag-acts","tag-allow","tag-disruptive","tag-education","tag-fears","tag-fine","tag-for","tag-force","tag-leaders","tag-less","tag-making","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parents","tag-partys","tag-plan","tag-reasonable","tag-remove","tag-risks","tag-safe","tag-safety","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-sparks","tag-staff","tag-students","tag-warn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556535","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=556535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}