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Troublesome pupils may soon be given time out instead of being suspended or expelled - because it causes less disruption to their learning.
The Post Primary Teachers Association is backing an initiative by secondary schools in Timaru to deal with pupils who face expulsion or suspension.
The method, modelled on the kind of punishments used by preschools and nurseries, will be tested next year and is being funded by the Ministry of Education.
The initiative yesterday received widespread backing from teaching organisations and is called the Take2 Timaru Student Support Network.
It gives schools the option to send students to a behaviour management programme outside the school grounds for up to two weeks. A record would appear on the students' school files, but they would not be expelled or suspended. Funding of $364,000 over four years is being provided by the Ministry of Education.
PPTA president Robin Duff said the programme is "a practical local attempt to deal with a difficult problem".
He added: "Behaviour management is always a difficult issue for schools. It is great to see schools coming up with a positive alternative and I would hope to see the ministry do all it can to encourage this and similar initiatives."
In August, figures revealed that the rate of suspensions of Pacific Island students had risen 20 per cent in the past six years.
The first monitoring report of the Pasifika Education Plan, which maps out goals to improve education of Pacific Islanders to 2010, found the suspension rate was the only ethnically based one to rise among students in 2006.
While the rate of suspensions among Maori and European students dropped by about 20 per cent in the past five years, the Pasifika rate went up and, last year, was 10.6 per 1000 students, up from 9.4 a year earlier.
It is lower than the Maori rate of 15.6 last year and more than double the NZ European rate of 4.4.
The Asian rate is lowest at 1.3.
Initially the scheme will be available to students from Roncalli College, Craighead Diocesan, Mountainview High School, Timaru Girls High and Timaru Boys High and begin in 2008.
Roncalli College principal John Hogue said there were similar programmes operating around the country but this one provided schools with another mechanism to intervene before the drama of suspension.
"There is plenty of research to show that it is better to get in quick, rather than being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
"Schools want what's best for students, and that is to keep them in education," Mr Hogue said.
The president of the School Trustees Association, Lorraine Kerr, said any effort to keep students in school would be welcomed.
"It is so easy [for schools] to suspend or exclude a student, and wash their hands of them, but schools are becoming more astute, particularly when it comes to retaining students and any programme that does that is a good one."
Irene Cooper, president of the New Zealand Educational Institute, also welcomed the scheme.
"I don't know the Timaru programme, but any structured programme that is linked to behaviour management is worth taking a look at," she said.
"The era where you think you can beat kids into submission should be gone.
"You need to change students' thinking and reward system, change what it means to them to be an adult."
According to Ministry of Education statistics, there were 22,467 stand-down cases during 2006, which was up slightly on the previous year. There were also 5008 suspension cases.
But Ms Kerr said it might not be quite so high.
"The problem with ministry stats is that they don't tell you how many kids are coming back to school - there is a high number," she said.
Mr Hogue believed the programme would be suitable for other parts of the country.
"For some kids it will be their last opportunity to turn themselves around."
