9. MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this
to the Minister of Education
What is the Government doing to reduce bullying in schools?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) Link to this
Today I announced a new $9.5 million fund to help schools promote positive behaviour and reduce the kind of disruptive behaviour that one sometimes sees in the House. This funding will contribute to our work around eliminating bullying, by providing resources and guidance to schools so that they can deal with the impact of disruptive behaviour. The new funding will help ensure that every school is able to provide a safe and productive learning environment for its students. It is part of a wider reducing-violence package to be announced in the Budget.
Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
Disruptive behaviour in schools affects everyone’s learning negatively in some way. Offenders and their classmates do not get a chance to get on with their learning, teachers become stressed, and the links between school and home can break down. So this initiative will provide additional support for schools to ensure that children with severe behavioural problems can stay in school; better information and resources to ensure that there are good policies and guidelines for every school; a new behaviour screening tool that will help schools identify at an early stage children at risk, then act on the issue; and a continuation of Project Early in Christchurch and Auckland. All of those will help deal with disruptive behaviour in our schools.
Hon Brian Donnelly Link to this
Does the Minister agree that the sustainable alleviation of bullying in schools will not be effected by packaged programmes such as Kia Kaha, but can be achieved only by the creation of school cultures of physical and verbal non-violence; and how will this funding boost bring about the cultural changes required, so that we no longer lead the world in bullying levels, as the 1997 third international maths and science study report showed?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
The member is right. The major change that we want, of course, is consistency of behaviour across schools that leads to young people not getting themselves involved in disruptive behaviour. But I would add that it is impossible for schools to deliver this on their own; they have the pupils for only 6 hours a day. I think one of the most important things we need to do is say that that culture needs to extend into the home, so that the good behaviours that are developed in the school are reinforced there. As I have said a number of times, I urge parents to contact their school, find out what it is doing, and reinforce that same pattern of behaviour in the home.