The question was whether that was reasonable at the time, given that attitudes to disciplining children had changed since then. Mr Blaikie also urged the jury to consider the background to the complaints.
"These allegations arose at the time this kura was in turmoil, when the school was very divided ... Papa Hemi Epiha was very distinctly on one side, and the families of the complainants were on the other side. If there hadn't been division in the school, would these complaints have been made? I very much doubt it."
The Education Act barred the use of force but other means of managing children were not illegal, he said.
The assault charges related to four boys who said they had been punched, slammed into a wall, and had their hair pulled.
Mr Blaikie said the hair-pulling was the result of hair becoming tangled in a guitar or a watch. The other allegations were "fanciful".
Crown prosecutor Mike Smith urged the jury not to be distracted by side issues such as what was going on at the school at the time. All they had to decide was whether they accepted what the boys had told the court.
Mr Smith said what had happened was not at the extreme end of unlawful detention or kidnapping.
"But these are children who were six or seven years old, locked up from before lunch until it was time to go home. That is not reasonable, that is not lawful, that is not 'time out'. That is detaining children unlawfully."
He also urged the jury to ignore claims that "back then things were different". The law around detaining people or using force against schoolchildren had not changed since then.
"This case is not about how things used to be. All I ask you is to consider what happened to these boys."
The trial was before Judge Keith de Ridder. The boys, now in their teens, gave evidence via CCTV and recorded interviews.