Behaviour & discipline How do I know what the school rules are? What sort of behaviour would get me into trouble at school? What types of punishments do schools use? Can I be made to sign a behaviour contract at school? I want to enrol at a school but they want me or my parents to sign a contract first. Is this allowed? What should be in a behaviour contract? I signed a behaviour contract, what happens if I break it? What are daily reports? Are teachers allowed to discipline me by physical punishment? Can teachers use exercise as a punishment? Can a teacher punish a whole class? Is my teacher allowed to keep me in detention? What is a time-out? Can my school send me home?
Schools have the power to discipline or punish students if they break a school rule or don’t follow a teacher’s instruction. Usually, schools decide what rules are necessary for students’ education or to keep them safe. However, there are some limits — schools do not have absolute freedom to punish students whenever they think they should.
School rules at public and integrated school must be clear and certain so that it is obvious whether a student is following them.
Most schools give students or their parents a copy of the school rules soon after their first day of school. If you are not sure what the rules are or have lost your copy of the school rules, you can ask for a copy from the school’s reception or your dean.
Every school has slightly different expectations of their students and each school sets its own school rules. Sometimes what one school considers acceptable behaviour will be considered unacceptable by another school. However, every school is likely to have rules against things like fighting, bullying, disrespecting teachers, swearing, smoking, drinking alcohol, viewing inappropriate material, taking drugs, stealing, disrupting other students from learning, vandalism, and bringing weapons or prohibited items to school.
Most schools also have rules about the school uniform, completing work, missing school, and other rules that help the day-to-day running of a school.
Different schools use different types of punishment, but these usually include:
You can never be forced to sign a document by your school — you always have a choice. However, if your school asks you to sign a behaviour contract as a disciplinary action and you don’t sign the contract, they might take further disciplinary action. Also, if you have recently been suspended and were allowed to return to school with conditions, one of the conditions being the signing of a reasonable behavioural contract, you might have to sign the behavioural contract to meet the conditions and remain at your school.
If you want to enrol in a private or state integrated school, they are probably allowed to require you to sign a contract before you start attending. If you want to enrol in your local public school (that you are in-zone for, if it has a zone), you should be able to enrol without signing a contract, as long as you meet the general criteria of age and residency, and have not excluded or expelled. However, there will be documents you or your parents will have to fill out before attending a public school, which might include information like your name, date of birth, any medical conditions, and other basic information which the school must gather for administrative and safety purposes.
The Ministry of Education has said that contracts that schools make with students and their carers should be two-way agreements which both show conditions that the student and their parents agree, and show the school’s duty to provide good guidance and counselling for the student.
The consequences for breaking a behaviour contract depend on the school and what type of contract you have signed. If you signed a contract after returning from suspension and have breached the contract’s conditions, your school could hold a reconsideration meeting and you might get kicked out of school. However, you only had to sign the contract because you have had some trouble or need extra help, your school might decide to give you a normal type of discipline (such as a detention or talking to you or your parents), or they could decide to take more serious action, like a stand-down or suspension, if your behaviour is serious enough or has happened a number of times.
Daily reports are a type of discipline. If a student has a daily report, their teachers usually have to sign their report card after each class and can comment on the student’s behaviour during their class. A student might also have to bring their daily report home every day for their parent(s) or guardian(s) to sign, so they can see the student’s progress at school.
If a student continues to behave badly while on a daily report, they will probably be disciplined further. However, any further discipline cannot be an automatic stand-down or suspension, because a fair process has to be followed before a student is stood down or suspended.
Any physical punishment by any teachers or staff members is illegal. Even if a student’s parent(s) or caregiver(s) have given ‘permission’ to the student’s teacher or school to hit the student or use any physical force against them, this is not allowed. The use of force by anyone can be a criminal assault!
A few schools still use physical exercise, such as sit-ups, press-ups or running, to discipline students. These punishments are not illegal in themselves, but they cannot be used in a way that is cruel, embarrassing, or too harsh to the student. A student should not be made into a public spectacle, because this is likely to be undignified and degrading discipline.
If you think this has happened to you, you may want to consider talking to the school and making a complaint.
There is no law that makes it illegal for teachers to keep a whole class in detention. However, several laws (The Bill of Rights Act, which says that no one can randomly be kept in detention; the fundamental legal principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty; and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says that no child should have their freedom taken away without good reason) show that it is unreasonable for a teacher to keep a whole class in detention unless every person in the class has done something wrong.
The new law about search and seizure of students’ items does not allow a school to search a whole class unless there is a reasonable belief that each student has a harmful item.
Detentions are a common type of discipline in most schools. Detentions involve preventing a student from leaving a particular area for a certain amount of time, usually to do school work or some kind of punishment.
If you are in detention during a break or lunchtime, schools must allow you to go to the bathroom and eat, and should give you with a safe space to do these things. If the teacher thinks that you don’t genuinely need to go to the bathroom (for example, if you went 5 minutes ago), they might keep you in detention for longer or say no to your request.
A school would normally need your parents’ permission to keep you in detention after school.
A time-out is when you’re asked to move somewhere away from other students for a short period of time, like outside the classroom, or in the time-out room, to calm down or to separate disruptive behaviour.
Time-outs are different to seclusions which are now banned under the law. Seclusion is when you’re placed in a room involuntarily, alone and from which you can’t freely exit, or believe you can’t freely exit.
If time-outs are used for long periods of time, too frequently or in too many classes for one student, they may also be illegal. This is because students have a right to an education. If a student is spending a large chunk of the school day out of the classroom then he or she may not be getting much of an education.
It is illegal for schools to send students home unless:
At all other times, schools must do everything they can to make sure that enrolled students attend school, so they should not send you home.