School suspensions up amid crackdown from principals on student violence

A WA school student was suspended every two minutes last year, rising by 11 per cent, according to new figures from the Education Department. After the implementation of new strict policies amid a wave of violence in schools, 21,565 students were suspended in 2023, up from 19,289 in 2022. The new data in the Department’s annual report, released in Parliament, show the violence teachers and principals face across WA. It comes as the Department rolled out a suite of new training for teachers from July last year, including de-escalation, which the annual report stated more than 3800 teachers had completed, with 808 new graduates receiving it as part of their induction. Education Minister Dr Tony Buti said the Government had “zero tolerance” towards violence in our schools. “Schools are places for learning and all students and staff have the right to feel safe,” he said. “The vast majority of the more than 320,000 public school students do the right thing and have a great time at school, however the ones who display aggressive and violent behaviour will be suspended and, where warranted, excluded.” Among the tough new rules imposed last year principals were to automatically suspend students who attacked other students, start fights or share and promote violence online. Violence in schools became a significant issue for the government at the beginning of this year, with many students caught with knives, including one confiscated from a Year 2 student, aged seven or eight, in a southern suburbs primary school. In another incident, a 13-year-old boy assaulted another student and a staff member at Shenton College, before threatening a worker and trying to steal the canteen’s cash register. This week the boy was sentenced to a six-month intensive supervision order, but warned he had come “very close” to a period of detention. The West revealed earlier this year public school teachers and principals were the targets of 14 assaults or physical threats each day they were in the classroom in 2023 — a 20 per cent jump on the previous year. About 40 per cent of the 2756 incidents reported to the Department of Education — 1175 in total — involved “a weapon or physical object”. Staff required medical assistance following an altercation on 730 occasions, while police were called to schools in the aftermath of 240 of the incidents. The Department’s Alternative Learning Settings program — whereby students who have been excluded for “complex and challenging” behaviours are moved to a specialist school — had 236 participants last year, up from 170 in 2022.