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A teenage hacker has been suspended from school until the end of the year, after he was found to have broken school rules by accessing other people's emails.
The Westlake Boys High School Year 13 student will be out of class for more than two terms but will
remain on the roll and be "supported" with school materials.
The rare arrangement - handed down by the board of trustees discipline committee yesterday - means he can sit exams at the end of the year.
Board chairman Graham Darlow said the punishment was deemed to be the best action for both the student and the school.
"The offence was not sufficient to warrant full expulsion," he said.
The school has reviewed security of its information system and increased the protection.
It followed the exclusion of 12 Westlake Boys High students last week for using and supplying cannabis. The decile-nine school is known for its hard line on discipline. It made headlines in January with the introduction of a "graduation" scheme to stop Year 9 and 10 students moving up a year if they didn't reach certain standards.
In the latest case, Mr Darlow said an investigation started last week after a complaint from another student's parent.
It found the teenager had hacked into the computer system and accessed school information files, including other people's emails, over "many weeks".
Mr Darlow said a suggestion the boy altered his academic results was incorrect. "Our investigations have shown that they weren't."
He said the student's actions were against school rules.
"He's a typical, young, computer-savvy person who we understand was doing this more for entertainment than for malice."
Latest national data on standdowns, suspensions, exclusions and expulsions did not list extended suspensions as a separate category.
A Ministry of Education spokesman said extended suspensions were relatively rare and should be used with ongoing support for student learning.
Details of the longest extended suspension were not available last night but the spokesman said there had been cases longer than the Westlake Boys High School case.
