One in 30 NSW public school children suspended in 2021

More than one in 30 NSW public schoolchildren were suspended in the first semester of 2021, but a Sydney school principal has shown there is a way to make drastic change to student behaviour.

More than one in 30 public school students were suspended in the first semester of 2021.

The NSW Education Department figures show that 40,648 students were suspended from school in the first semester this year, including 8457 primary school children.

In November, the Sunday Telegraph revealed 424 kindergarten students had been suspended in the first half of 2021, with 343 — or 80 per cent of those — having a disability.

Off the back of the figures, which have grown year-on-year, Education Minister Sarah Mitchell announced another 130 new student wellbeing specialists will be added next year to stem the growing rise in suspensions.

The specialists will begin in 2022, joining more than 2000 staff who provide wellbeing support in schools and play a key role in the implementation of the state government’s student behaviour strategy, she said.

“I want the education system focused on keeping kids in school, not kicking them out, and enabling that requires deeper and more holistic support for schools,” Ms Mitchell said.

Kerry Weston, Principal at Guilford West Public School with Year 1 student Annabelle Ly. Picture: Sam Ruttyn.

“This package will equip principals and staff in NSW schools with the skills and support to respond to complex behaviours in the classroom.

“These new positions will form part of a wraparound support package, co-designed with key education stakeholders and experts, to ensure the behaviour strategy’s policies and procedures are implemented effectively next year.”

The Royal Commission into people with a disability found NSW’s suspension and expulsion procedures disproportionately and adversely affected children with disability.

It highlighted the case of a kindy boy with autism named Sam who received his first suspension when he was five and spent a total of 50 days out of school in just over a year of education, culminating in his parents deciding to homeschool.

“NSW accepted that the suspension and expulsion procedures were applied literally and without due regard for Sam’s disabilities in each instance,” the Royal Commission found.

Dr David Roy, education lecturer at University of Newcastle, pushed for the inquiry in 2017 into disability an education.

Kerry Weston, Principal at Guilford West Public School has helped to turn around the high rates of suspensions at the school. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“It always disproportionately affects children with a disability but also first nation’s children ... we have to ask why children are being suspended. An attitude change has to happen and we need to rethink why we are using suspension and exclusion because there is no evidence it works,” Dr Roy said.

The “Integrated Positive Behaviour Learning” model can turn the tide for many students.

When principal Kerry Weston took over Guildford West Public School in 2016, more than one in four kids — 120 of the 440 — had been suspended for violent and aggressive behaviour.

By providing support for teachers along with positive behaviour rewards, that has been reduced to just 17 students this year — a 700 per cent decrease.

“We put in place a whole strategy, we looked at how you teach, what was the quality of the teaching? If students are not engaging they want to leave, so we took on the positive behaviour for learning approach throughout the school,” she said.

“Instead of saying: ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that’, it is about: ‘Are you being safe, are you being responsible’ ... (saying) ‘I love how you are being a responsible learner/walking safely to the classroom’.

“We have an 8:1 ratio, for every one negative you have to give a child eight positives, so (you have to) catch them being good.

“We are do a lot of work around social and emotional, we do yoga and also teaching the children how do they self-regulate and manage themselves, do you use your fists or hands, use your words.”