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A review currently underway at Whangaparāoa College includes a focus on improving behaviour and how detentions may fit into the tool kit of consequences.
While detentions may conjure up images of sitting at a desk in an empty classroom after your peers have all gone home, principal Steve McCracken says that those days are long gone.
“We are a restorative practice-based school, and prefer to involve the family first and work with learners to address what’s behind the behaviour,” he says. “But there is a point where we will draw the line, when our expectations of behaviour are not being met. Our perception is that detentions give learners the ability to give time back – to learning or community service around the school. We are currently working through what that might look like.”
He says at present there is no school-wide detention process, although individual teachers or departments may hold detentions at their discretion.
McCracken says the college has heard loud and clear from the community that standards need to be higher right across the board – including behaviour and academic standards. The school board has policies in place to that end but how change is achieved is led by the principal.
“As a school we are reviewing our procedures around things such as consequences as part of improving standards. Starting this term we expect our learners to be on site, in class and ready to learn. We are also making our expectations around mobile phone use clear.”
McCracken says if those expectations are not met, consequences will be put in place. “Detention is just one of a raft of measures – it’s a relatively quick way of addressing problem behaviour if there is an immediate need. I hope detention will be used as rarely as possible.”
McCracken says he wants the college “reset” to take place as soon as possible and hopes to have a trial at the start of Term 3.
Other local college principals agree that restorative practices are their main methods for addressing behaviour. Ōrewa principal Greg Pierce says detentions are used less than they were in previous years due to an increasing range of other strategies, including restorative practices and “standard Ministry of Education disciplinary options for more serious issues, such as stand-downs and suspensions.”
Kingsway College executive principal Graeme Budler says detentions are used at his school, but in the context of restorative practice.
“For example if you graffitied the toilets I guess staying after school to scrub them is a good way to restore,” he says.
