Schools cracked down on more fights and assaults last year. Photo: Unsplash/ Taylor Flowe
Schools cracked down on more fights and assaults than ever before as their rolls increased rapidly last year.
Education Ministry figures show the number of stand-downs for children who physically assaulted other students or their teachers reached 9758 and 1151 respectively in 2024.
Both figures were slightly higher than in 2023 but happened in a year when the total number of students surged to 850,999 by the middle of 2024, a high surpassed only by this year's enrolments.
The number of stand-downs for smoking, vaping or alcohol dropped by a third, from 4992 in 2023 to 3360 last year.
That drove down the total number of stand-downs and the rate of stand-downs for every 1000 students, which fell from 39 in 2023 to 37 last year, though the 2024 figure was still much higher than every other year in records going back to 2000.
Suspension and exclusion rates also dropped last year and were lower than rates for most of the previous 24 years.
But the expulsion rate jumped, from one per 1000 students to almost two, a figure similar to most previous years.
Expulsions applied to students at or above the legal school-leaving age of 16, while exclusions involved those under the age of 16.
Schools excluded 1203 students and expelled 178 last year.
A third of the exclusions and 42 percent of the expulsions were for assaults on other students.
A ministry report said 80 percent of excluded students enrolled in a new school, the correspondence school, their original school, or were home-schooled.
It said 94 percent of the expelled students did not return to school.
It said 177 schools expelled 178 students last year, up from 77 schools and 102 students in 2023.
Part of Auckland - Tāmaki Herenga Waka - had an expulsion rate more than double that of most other areas at four per 1000 students
Home-schooling enrolments reach record high
The number of home-schooled children exceeded 11,000 this year.
There were 11,010 homeschooled students at 1 July 2025, 253 more than the same time last year and the highest figure ever recorded.
Ministry figures showed 1772 students left homeschooling this year, 24 percent of them after less than a year.
They were balanced by 2025 students entering homeschooling, 39 percent of whom were six-year-olds.
Home-schooling enrolments surged in 2022 when 4342 students enrolled and had hovered around 10,800 pupils for the past three years.
More students leave school early
Education Ministry figures showed 1342 15-year-olds were granted permission to leave school last year.
That was 51 more early leaving exemptions than in 2023.
The rate of exemption was just over 20 per 1000 15-year-olds, very slightly higher than in 2023 and the highest rate since 2007 when the figure was 32.
Boys accounted for 766 of the early exemptions and 576 were for girls.
Fewer transient students
The rate of student transience dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade last year.
Education Ministry figures showed 2442 students changed schools twice or more last year, giving a transience rate of 2.9 for every 1000 students in 2024.
The rate was slightly lower than in 2023 and well below pre-covid rates which ranged from 4-5 per 10000.
The ministry said transience could harm students' achievement at school.
"Research suggests that students who move home and/or school frequently are more likely to under-achieve in formal education when compared with students who have a more stable school life," it said.
"A study found that school movement had an even stronger effect on educational success than residential movement. There is also evidence that transience can have negative effects on student behaviour, and on short-term social and health experiences."
The figures showed most of the transient students moved school twice, but 189 moved three times, 21 four times and seven five times or more.
However, figures for the cohort of 61,633 students who began school in 2019 showed 13 percent or 7889 had been transient at some point in the past six years.
Though most had changed school only twice, 1788 had three changes, 751 four, 337 five changes and 377 six school changes.
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