New data reveals South East Qld’s worst behaved state high school students

A comprehensive analysis of hundreds of public secondary school suspension and exclusion data has revealed SEQ’s worst behaved students. SEARCH YOUR SCHOOL

Marsden State High School - which has nearly 4000 students - handed out the most short suspensions with 796. Picture: Richard Walker

One of the state’s top principals says the youth crime crisis is spilling into the classroom, as South East Queensland’s worst behaved public high schools can be revealed.

More than 100 annual reports of public secondary schools across Brisbane, Logan, Moreton Bay, Ipswich and the Gold and Sunshine coasts has revealed the students who missed the most days through disciplinary action in 2023.

There are four categories of school disciplinary absences (SDAs) including: short suspensions, long suspensions, exclusions and cancellations.

Marsden State High School - which has nearly 4000 students - handed out the most short suspensions with 796, the most long suspensions with 99 and the most exclusions with 69. 12 students also had enrolments cancelled.

Among the schools handing out the most short suspensions were Redbank Plains State High School with 762, Ipswich State High School with 714 and Morayfield State High School with 684. All three schools have more than 1500 students.

Yarrabilba State Secondary College, which only opened in 2020, was among the highest for long suspensions with 57 while Bellbird Park State Secondary College had 51.

Bremer State High School had 52 exclusions, followed by Redbank Plains State High School with 30.

Queensland Secondary Principals Association president Kirsten Ferdinands said schools were representative of society and where there were a lot more community issues and more violence it may be represented in some individual schools.

Redbank Plains State High School recorded 762 short suspensions in 2023.

“We’re hearing about youth crime, we’re hearing about youth violence. We are seeing that type of behaviour also crossing over into schools,” Ms Ferdinands said.

“So that number of exclusions would be similar to probably what the number of types of behaviours that the police and society is dealing with in regards to some of that youth and those youth aspects as well.

“Every school has its school of code of behaviour, and all state schools are very clear around you know that teachers have a right to teach and students have a right to learn.”

Ms Ferdinands said schools had seen an increase in both physical and verbal violence towards each other and towards some staff at school.

“Schools, must, and do, have policies and strategies in place to ensure the safety of all staff and students,” she said.

“Some behaviours fall into categories where that safety is taken away, and whether it is violence, which I know from the general proportion of the most number of suspensions statewide that came out in that data set a month ago.

“Schools will use suspension or exclusion as a last resort, in terms of where there has been a significant breach of behaviour, particularly around that safety aspect.”