Victoria’s ‘Safe Schools’ get top marks for classroom disorder

Primary school students in Victoria believe their classmates are more disruptive this year.

More Victorian primary school students believe classmates are disruptive compared with last year, while high school students are more likely to complain that other students are being rowdy.

There were also fewer Victorian state students in all grades who reported feeling safe in 2016 compared with 12 months earlier.

This was despite investments in the Safe Schools program designed to reduce homophobia and transphobia, the Bully Stoppers initiative and the eSmart Schools program in partnership with the Alannah and Madeline Foundation to foster a culture that promotes responsible use of technology.

In Years 7 to 10 last year, 58.1 per cent agreed that their school was safe, compared with 58.7 per cent the year before. Victoria is the only state to go it alone on the Safe Schools program after federal funding ran out in June.

The ACT will soon launch its own version.

The snapshot, from the state’s Education Department’s annual report, shows 24.3 per cent of students in Years 7 to 10 in state schools were likely to say their classmates were disruptive, down from 24.7 per cent in 2015.

The number of state primary school students complaining about unruly behaviour rose from 14.1 per cent to 14.3 per cent.

In March, an analysis of the latest Program for International Student Assessment by the Australian Council for Educational Research found Australian students continued to rank among the worst behaved in the developed world.

It found the nation sat below the OECD average for classroom discipline.

About one-third of students in affluent schools and about half in disadvantaged schools reported that in most or every class there was noise and disorder, students didn’t listen to the teacher, and students found it difficult to learn.

In Queensland, the Education Department’s annual report showed total expenses for 2016-17 were $9.326 billion, an increase of $453 million from last year.

Salaries and wages remain the major component at 67 per cent of total expenses.

State school students completing school with a Queensland Certificate of Education or the Queensland Certificate of Individual Achievement increased to 97.8 per cent last year. The percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students with a QCE or QCIA rose to 97 per cent.