By Christopher Harris and Lucy Carroll
More than 800 school students were suspended every week last year amid a classroom behaviour crisis that is leading to principals issuing sanctions for physical violence, aggression and assault.
Data released by the NSW Education Department shows 33,903 public school students were suspended last year, with the bulk of those for causing unacceptable risk to the health and safety of teachers or classmates.
About one in 12 high school students was suspended, the majority for aggressive behaviour.
A police investigation was launched at Ambarvale High in south-west Sydney this week after numerous physical fights broke out at the school on Wednesday, with at least one teacher injured.
Video footage of one attack shows a student running towards another boy before throwing multiple punches, with a female teacher caught up in the scrum of fighting schoolchildren.
School parents say not enough is being done to address persistent misbehaviour and violent attacks. One mother said she was unsurprised when her son recounted the series of fights that occurred in the playground.
More than 33,000 students were suspended for exhibiting behaviour which was an unacceptable risk to the school environment.Credit: Janie Barrett
“It seems like there are no repercussions,” said the mother, who did not wish to be named for privacy reasons.
Despite a statewide mobile phone ban, another mother whose son was punched in the face said she was concerned students had filmed the incidents. Under new rules, public school students are banned from accessing mobile devices during the day.
“They get phones out to video,” she said. “He doesn’t want to go to school. He won’t be going back until I am satisfied that kid has been expelled. That is what I am pushing for.”
A total of 59,814 suspensions were issued to students last year, either for unacceptable risk to safety and health of others or for actual harm. The figures reported are similar to 2022.
In a report detailing the sanctions, the NSW Education Department said data collection issues and behaviour policy changes meant the figures could not be compared to previous years.
Just over 100 students were expelled for “serious behaviours of concern” or for unsatisfactory participation for pupils aged over 17. The numbers are down from about 300 expulsions in 2018.
Of the suspensions given for unacceptable risk to health and safety, 17,478 were for aggressive behaviour; 13,646 for persistent misbehaviour; 3065 for physical violence; 2082 for verbal abuse; 1153 for misuse of technology and 663 for possessing a weapon, firearm or knife.
Controversial rules in the 2023 school year restricted principals from sending students home unless they had inflicted actual harm, while also capping the length of the suspensions.
That policy was reversed in term one this year, with principals given the power to extend the length of suspensions and the ability to send students home for persistent bad behaviour.
In another incident at Ambarvale High this week, a boy sprayed a girl in the face with an aerosol deodorant can, prompting her to enlist other girls to retaliate with more violence, a student said.
“She got all her friends to go and bash him … he tried to pick one girl up and drop her … About 700 kids were watching the fight in the amphitheatre,” a student said.
One source close to the school, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely, said fights on the school grounds were frequent. “It’s been going on for some time. Teachers don’t feel safe,” they said.
A Department of Education spokesperson said the school had invited police to address students on Thursday.
“This type of behaviour is completely unacceptable. It is not tolerated by Ambarvale High School, or any NSW public school, and does not reflect the wider school community,” the spokesperson said.
“The students involved have been disciplined by the school, and police are investigating.”
NSW Teachers’ Federation deputy president Amber Flohm said: “The profession expects a high standard of behaviour from every student, and the department has a legislated responsibility to ensure that teachers have a safe and healthy workplace.”
“It is not just a question of disadvantage; behaviour from students is a complex societal problem across a lot of different school communities.”
NSW Secondary Principals’ Council president Denise Lofts said schools were doing the heavy lifting when it came to addressing disadvantage and the complex mental health needs of young people.
“There is more violence in the community. Where there is violence in the community, it comes into the school. Schools are the place which proactively deal with it and wraps around those young students and their families,” she said.
“Public education needs the funding in which to support disadvantage, whether it is around addressing violence which arrives in the school.”
She said no principal wanted to suspend a student, but said was necessary to ensure the classroom was conducive to learning.
“Suspensions do trigger support. Support would be around extra school counselling, their own personal learning plan, behaviour plan, risk management plan, behaviour plan and skills for teachers around deescalation.”
A Senate inquiry last year recommended children be explicitly taught how to conduct themselves in schools, and called for a national behaviour curriculum. The federal government this week released a series of step-by-step guides for teachers on how to manage classrooms.
Results from a Monash University survey in 2022 reveal a quarter of teachers feel unsafe in their workplace, citing student behaviour, violence and parent abuse as reasons.
Australian teenagers are also more likely to feel unsafe and bullied at school than their international peers, while the latest OECD data reveals schools are in the grip of a wellbeing crisis for girls and children have high levels of anxiety attached to their digital devices.
Students also have a lower sense of belonging than the OECD average. In 2022, Australian students reported higher levels of exposure to bullying than all comparison countries except Latvia.
While the NSW Education Department reports on suspension data in public schools, there is no equivalent publicly available figures for private and Catholic schools.
President of the Australian Primary Principals Association, Angela Falkenberg, said schools were managing students with “poor self-regulation, and a rising number of children who require interventions.”
“Many schools are reporting more challenging behaviour and there are a whole lot of factors intersecting. Students who are facing disadvantage … and children growing up in houses were there is violence. We have challenges in our communities and these challenges are playing out in our schools,” she said.
The latest NSW data shows 7138 public primary students were suspended last year, and 26,766 high school students. More than 1000 kindergarten to year 2 students were suspended due to “actual harm”.
“Suspensions due to actual harm reveals a significant gender disparity across primary and secondary education levels,” the report said. About 70 per cent of all suspensions were for boys.
About 4.3 per cent of all students were suspended last year. For Aboriginal students that rate rose to 12.3 per cent.
A Department of Education spokesperson said there was zero tolerance for violent or inappropriate behaviour.
“We continue to provide shoulder-to-shoulder support for teachers schools and students who have a right to teach in safe and productive classrooms environments. The safety and wellbeing of students is always our number one priority.”
“The department is continually looking at how it can support students and families. With the introduction of the revised behaviour policy in 2024, we also set up stronger reporting to identify students in need of dedicated support,” they said.
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