Category Archives: NZ Media

Teachers to get help to curb pupil violence

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/2761290/Teachers-to-get-help-to-curb-pupil-violence

Teachers to get help to curb pupil violence

By JOHN HARTEVELT – The Press

Last updated 05:00 18/08/2009

The Government plans to curb schoolyard misbehaviour as new figures reveal a growing number of attacks on teachers and pupils.

Ministry of Education figures released yesterday show expulsions as a result of physical assaults on other pupils rose from 9.4 per cent of all expulsions in 2000 to 25.3 per cent last year.

Expulsions for assaults on staff have increased from 3.1 per cent of the total in 2000 to 6.5 per cent last year.

Last year, 15,930 pupils were stood down a total of 20,279 times. The rate of stand-downs 28.5 pupils per 1,000 was lower than in 2007 but equal or higher than in five of the previous eight years.

A pupil at Auckland’s Avondale College faces jail after he stabbed teacher David Warren in the back on March 3. Warren, originally from Christchurch, is understood to have returned to work part-time but faces months of rehabilitation.

Tae Won Chung, 17, has been convicted of injuring Warren and will be sentenced next month.

Education Ministry acting manager for schools and pupil support Joanne Allen said the Avondale College case was “very extreme”, and there had been no similar attacks since.

“It may be something that is minor. It might be that a child is lashing out when they’re angry and sort of having an angry fit, and the teacher gets hit or a child gets hit in the process,” she said. “It could be as much as a child and another child having a fight and the teacher getting in the middle. There is a whole range of issues.” Education Minister Anne Tolley has told Auckland principals that a plan had been prepared after a summit on behaviour in March. “Our approach to these issues in the past may have been well-intended, but the results have been mixed and too reliant on strength of personalities to achieve results,” she said.

“We need to improve support for teachers and schools and make wide-ranging improvements to services.” The Press understands the use of resource teachers of learning behaviour will be reviewed and teacher-training institutes will be asked to improve training in behaviour management.

Schools will be given formation on how they can deal with extreme behaviour.

Principals’ Federation president Ernie Buutveld said: “The problem is not going to go away. What we’re looking for is better answers, and it may be that you have to endure these stats a little bit longer.” The new figures “might prompt some speeding up” of measures, he said.

Another advantage for Home Education – it never stops in the home.

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Schools may close as flu deaths reach 700

Another advantage for Home Education – it never stops in the home.
Last updated 00:00 22/07/2009

UNSTOPPABLE VIRUS: Countries may need to close schools to slow the spread of swine flu, the WHO says.

Swine flu has killed more than 700 people worldwide since emerging in April, and countries could consider closing schools to slow its spread, the World Health Organisation said.

Two weeks ago the death toll from the virus was 429 worldwide and the WHO says it is up to national health authorities to decide what measures they impose to slow the spread of the new strain.

British researchers writing in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases said on Monday that governments needed to draft plans for when and how to close schools if the swine flu pandemic worsens.

“School closure is one of the mitigation measures that could be considered by countries,” WHO spokeswoman Alphaluck Bhatiasevi told a news briefing.

“As WHO has been saying, different countries would be facing the pandemic at different levels at different times. So it is really up to countries to consider what mitigation measures suit them in regard to the situation in individual countries.”

The UN agency, which declared an H1N1 influenza pandemic on June 11, said last week it was the fastest-moving pandemic ever and now pointless to count every case.

It told countries to stop reporting individual cases and concentrate on mitigation measures and detecting any unusual patterns of disease or spike in rates of absenteeism.

Some 125,000 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported worldwide as of Tuesday, Bhatiasevi told Reuters.

A network of independent experts is doing mathematical modelling studies to project what kind of cost-effective and beneficial mitigation measures countries can implement, according to the spokeswoman.

The WHO is coordinating the group, composed of mathematicians, epidemiologists and virologists, she said.

The new flu strain can be treated by antivirals such as Roche Holding’s Tamiflu or GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza, but many patients recover without medical treatment.

Flu experts say at least one million people are infected in the United States alone.

– Reuters

Internet not safe for children

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/2381126/Internet-not-safe-for-children

Leaving children unsupervised on the internet is like giving them the keys to a Porsche and letting them loose on the motorway, Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff says.

Privacy Awareness Week began yesterday, with events focused on two privacy hotspots: the security of official information and internet awareness for young people.

Shroff said cases like that of Kaiapoi man Malcolm Spark who last week was jailed for 2 1/2 years for offences that stemmed from his prowling through internet chatrooms and enticing underage girls into discussions about sex highlighted the dangers the internet posed.

“Children need to realise it’s not a safe, secret playground,” Shroff said.

“Young people don’t particularly understand the reasons for the road code, so why should they understand the need for discretion and care and privacy on the internet? They are going to have to learn this.

“We are going through an explosive phase in technology and global information, and we have hardly started yet in knowing how to make sure that gets done according to normal human rules, human rights and social considerations.”

People were not thinking through the ramifications of what they posted online, Shroff said.

British surveys showed more than three-quarters of respondents would change or delete personal information on their webpages if they knew work colleagues or prospective employers were going to view it, but one in six did not know that such material was permanently available online.

Shroff said many people had argued today’s younger generation had a different attitude to privacy to their parents, a generational shift led by the development of social networking sites on the internet.

“I do not agree with that,” she said.

“That’s people making a judgment of what is only two to three years of something happening.

“It’s like when roads and fast cars were first invented, you don’t let your 13-year-old go out on the southern motorway with a Porsche, any more than you should be comfortable with your 13-year-old being on the information superhighway completely without any guidance, rules or controls.”

Parents needed to make sure their relationship with their children was trusting enough so that they could check what they were doing online, Shroff said.

She said internet safety organisation Netsafe had an excellent website with information for both children and adults.

Privacy Awareness Week events include a seminar on business and security which will focus on portable storage devices such as USB sticks, cellphones and PDAs a forum on sensor technology, and an exhibition of cartoons by Chris Slane.

Legal option after School bullying

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27 March 2009 7:28 p.m.

Dear Everyone,

I’ve pasted below a news article that exemplifies many of the vast multitude of things wrong with the state’s schooling institutions. I’m letting off a bit of steam because I am so angry at this rotten system that systematically practises institutionalised child abuse by teachers and administrators who are so desensitised to it, they will round on parents and bully them if they dare question what goes on. Many of these lousy schools are in blatant denial, refusing to admit they have a problem. The most amazing thing is that parents and even doctors and nurses will often side with the school against the victimised child, even in the face of bruises, cuts, crying themselves to sleep at night and having vomiting fits the next morning at the thought of returning to the place of torture.

This week has been amazing. I’ve had so many phone calls and emails from parents wanting to start home education because of the bullying their children have suffered for months, sometimes for years. One mum felt she didn’t want to send the child to school since he was so tender at age 5. She considered home schooling, but decided it was too radical a step. Now, at age 6, her son is toughed up and so much more sophisticated as everyone typically said he needed to become…and he is also defiled because of the sexual abuse he suffered at school. She now forever regrets the day she ever trusted him to the state. Another mum’s 10-year-old has significant physical disabilities which require a full-time aide. But the boy has had enough of the school-supplied aides and the constant teasing, as the nature of his disability is somewhat personal. He would prefer his mum, but the several schools approached will not have it as they not only dislike parents observing the reality of the classroom, they say it causes children to become too dependent upon their parents! And besides, they say, the boy stinks (due to his disability), and they’d prefer it if she would find another school. And so the boy refuses to enter the school grounds, the parent is begging them to let her instead of aides attend to her son’s needs, but they won’t let her, and she is now being threatened by a Group Special Education person with police and CYFPS and truancy officers if the child is not in school immediately!

It’s a flamin’ madhouse!

This article below has a typical school response to bullying. “Oh, it’s only girls being girls, boys being boys. It’ll blow over.” So when the girl spirals downhill and hits bottom, it turns out she has parents willing to do something: sue the school. Good on them, I say! Man, has it sobered up the school! The principal all of a sudden comes out of denial and makes a statement most principals would confess to only once they’d been stretched on the rack: “It does not matter what a school does, it can never be resolved completely.” This woman admitted that it is a permanent, on-going, unstoppable problem. We got a straight honest answer at last. I mean, this girl was bullied even after she left the school…by text messages!

The very threat of a legal suit also flushed out the fascinating, yet totally unknown fact, that “it is a statutory requirement for schools to take all reasonable steps to prevent bullying from occurring while pupils are at school,” and that “Failure to take such steps could result in criminal prosecution and hefty fines.” If all parents of school-abused children would simply threaten to sue the school, bullying would be slashed. A few successful suits, some bullies taken down, and the problem would recede way out onto the horizon.

But worst of all is the so-called Children’s Commissar, Cindy Kiro, criticising the parents for considering such an option, but uselessly offering no course of action in its place.

If you don’t know what is going on in these institutions of systematic child abuse called state schools, you need to find out. And then tell your friends and rellies to get their children OUT of those places as soon as possible. All I have to do is read the education column of Stuff.co.nz…it’s enough to make your toenails curl. But I’ve been reading it and other sources for over 20 years…I have stacks of clippings and e-articles of the most horrendous goings on, that just don’t stop, no matter how hard the schools try to cover up…and don’t fool yourself…they go to great lengths to slam the lid on any negative publicity.

Get yourself a subscription to TEACH Bulletin https://hef.org.nz/2007/teach-bulletin-1yr/.  It’s only $9 lousy bucks for 6 issues a year and almost always has a good sampling of the latest in state school violence, as well as other political and statist trends in relation to schools, home education and parenting. Get your friends and neighbours a subscription, too, for it will open their eyes. We’ve got to be informed and stop pretending everything is all right. We’ve got to get children out of the schools, and we’ve got to embolden parents to speak up when their children are being abused by the system.

TEACH Bulletin is available from us at:

Craig & Barbara Smith

Home Education Foundation

PO Box 9064

Palmerston North 4441

New Zealand

Ph. +64 6 357-4399

craig@hef.org.nz

www.hef.org.nz

Legal option after bullying

By NATHAN BEAUMONT – The Dominion Post

Last updated 05:00 21/03/2009

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/2281076/Legal-option-after-bullying

A family is considering legal action against a school after a girl was bullied for so long that she lost 12 kilograms, spent three weeks in hospital and had to move to another school.

The children’s commissioner has described the case as “completely unacceptable” and said she would be prepared to investigate.

And a lawyer is warning school boards that they could be prosecuted by parents whose children suffer emotional harm as a result of bullying.

The parents of the 15-year-old victim said St Mary’s College in Wellington did not do enough to stop the ordeal, which started in August 2007.

Though the bully had written an apology letter to the victim, her family said it was still seeking answers from the school board.

The victim informed the school counsellor when the bullying started, but was told it was just “girls being girls” and would “blow over”, her mother says.

But it did not blow over. Instead the victim said she endured taunts and rumours for a further seven months at school.

The girl’s mother said her daughter developed an eating disorder, lost 12 kilograms and spent three weeks in hospital recovering. The claim was backed up in a letter from a clinical psychologist that was sent to the school.

“After assessment it was clear that [her] weight loss was not due to concerns about her appearance but rather was as a tool to help her maintain control of herself during an episode of bullying by girls at school.”

The parents removed their daughter from the school, but said the taunts continued, with bullying text messages.

St Mary’s principal Mary Cook said the school did everything in its power to deal with the situation.

“The issue with bullying is that it is very difficult to deal with and isolate. It does not matter what a school does, it can never be resolved completely. We do everything we possibly can.”

Meanwhile, a lawyer has warned that it is a statutory requirement for schools to take all reasonable steps to prevent bullying from occurring while pupils are at school.

“Failure to take such steps could result in criminal prosecution and hefty fines,” John Miller said.

Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro said it would be a “sad day” if bullying victims started taking legal action.

“It’s not a route we want to go down, that’s the American way. It is an option, but it is the least constructive option.”

The victim’s mother said the family was keen to explore legal action. “Definitely, we would be keen to look into that area.

“All schools have different approaches to bullying, but St Mary’s seems to be: keep it quiet and deny, deny, deny.”

LETTER TO VICTIM

Letter from the bully to the 15-year-old victim after she left St Mary’s School.

“I don’t want you to have to leave all your friends because of all this shit. I am so sorry for everything. You have no idea how bad I feel. I would do anything to take back what’s happened and everything I have said and done, not only to you, but your friends.

“I know that we will never be friends, but I want us to be anything but enemies. I am so sorry for everything that has happened in the past year. I hope you get better soon and that this letter means even a little something to you.”

School Bullying Expected Outcome of Social Agenda

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MEDIA RELEASE 16 March 2009

School Bullying Expected Outcome of Social Agenda

Family First NZ says that concerns about school bullying are a simple result of the culture we have experimented with, which includes children’s rights, media standards, undermining the role of parents, and removing consequences.

“Why are we surprised by bullying and violence in our schools when children are fed this material through the media constantly,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “Kids are bullying each other, kids are bullying teachers, kids are bullying parents. Bullying is not just a school problem, and it’s not just a youth problem.”

“We cannot continue to feed the minds of our young people with the level of violence, sexual content and disrespect for authority that is prevalent in the media and our culture without it affecting the minds of some of our most impressionable and at-risk teenagers and children.”

“But schools are suffering in particular because they are being forced by the Ministry of Education to put up with increasing levels of unacceptable behaviour and are being criticised for suspending these students.”

“It is also significant that as schools have removed corporal punishment, schools have become more dangerous. School yard bullying by pupils on other pupils and staff is now the new form of ‘corporal punishment’ in schools.”

“All of these young people have entered a system of education and society where discipline and responsibility are being replaced by the politically correct nonsense of children’s rights. Ironically, this has been pushed by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner who is now crying foul.”

“The anti-smacking law has also undermined the role of parents, has failed to understand the special relationship and functioning of families, and has communicated to some children that they are now in the ‘driving seat’ and parents should be put in their place.”

Sweden, one of the first countries to ban smacking in 1979 suffered a similar fate with assaults by kids increasing 672% in the 13 years following the ban. A recent UN report on European Crime and Safety found that Sweden had one of the worst assault and sexual violence rates in EU.

“Student behaviour and bullying will continue to deteriorate for as long as we tell them that their rights are more important than their responsibilities, that proper parental authority is undermined by politicians and subject to the rights of their children, and that there will be no consequences of any significance or effectiveness for what they do,” says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS

For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

Bob McCoskrie – National Director

Mob. 027 55 555 42