Skip to main content
Ministry of Education New Zealand
CONTENTS
On this page

Involving the student and parent#

Before you make your decision, you may try to get all the parties at the meeting to agree on what the decision should be.

  • You may suggest a possible outcome to the student and invite comment.
  • Involving everyone increases the chances of achieving a fair and workable outcome.
  • You do not, however, need agreement to make your decision.

When making your decision, you must apply exactly the same tests as the principal:

  • Was the incident gross misconduct, continual disobedience or behaviour risking serious harm?
  • If the incident was gross misconduct or continual disobedience, did it set a harmful or dangerous example to other students at school?
  • What part did the student’s individual circumstances play?
  • What further action is appropriate?

Grounds for stand down or suspension

This is a balancing exercise, and you must take into account all relevant circumstances.

To help you do this, you may consider:

  • how other students have been affected
  • whether leniency would be appropriate
  • your obligations regarding natural justice
  • your obligations to provide a range of responses for cases of varying degrees of seriousness
  • the availability of other local schooling options if you are considering an exclusion or expulsion.
Information

Guidance from the courts

The obligations to think through all your options and consider all the circumstances "… are designed for the protection of children. They are not to be sacrificed to administrative or disciplinary efficiency, or some supposed need for absolute certainty. Results must not be fixed: they must instead be fair.”

M and R v S and Board of Trustees of Palmerston North Boys’ High School 2003 NZAR 705, 718 per McGechan J (decided 5 December 1990), p725.

Recording your reasons#

You must record your decision, and the reasons for it, in writing. You must explicitly consider each option open to you. Your records need to be complete. There should be enough information in the report to show that you turned your mind to the criteria you had to apply.

Document why you made the decision and how you arrived at the decision.

Communicating your decision#

To help you communicate your decision in writing, you may wish to use model letter template 3, 'Notifying parent/s or caregivers of outcome of suspension meeting'.

Model letter templates