School safety still needs to be sorted out: ERO

By REBECCA WALSH education reporter

More than half the schools reviewed by the Education Review Office last year failed health and safety standards.

Bullying, classroom and playground violence, ineffective intervention programmes and inadequate training for teachers in how to handle difficult situations were among the concerns identified by the office over the past decade.

Many schools were also struggling with issues such as cultural safety and racial harassment.

In its report, Safe Students in Safe Schools, the ERO said students' physical and emotional safety at school had been identified in its 1999 annual report as an issue that had not been eliminated in the wake of the 1989 Education Act.

The report, to be launched at the School Trustees Association annual conference in Wellington today, said that of the 642 state and integrated schools reviewed in 1999, 337 (52 per cent) failed to meet one or more requirements.

These ranged from failure to provide safe playground equipment and secure pool gates or fences to the failure to manage student behaviour effectively, to control bullying or to eliminate abuse of students by teachers or other students.

The report found one of the main factors affecting school safety was the failure of boards of trustees to understand their legal responsibilities.

It said a basic requirement was for school physical environments to be safe, but in 103 schools (16 per cent) boards had failed to identify and eliminate hazards or potential hazards in the school grounds, classrooms, laboratories or workshops.

In 119 schools (19 per cent) boards had failed to develop appropriate policy or guidelines on managing and reporting suspected child abuse.

Trustees association president Owen Edgerton said boards recognised the need to provide a safe environment and took their responsibilities seriously but he acknowledged there was room for improvement.

Mr Edgerton encouraged boards to arrange annual health and safety audits for their schools.

"If they identify two or three things, it could save a lot of heartache further down the track.

"In general I think the safety record of schools is very good, but schools need to be reviewing their safety procedures on an ongoing basis."

The president of the Secondary Schools Principals' Association, Tom Robson, said the figures surprised and concerned him.

However, the ERO took a broad view of what constituted safety "probably beyond what most communities would understand to be safety issues," he said.

The national president of the Parent Teacher Association, Alistair Peat, believed schools were safe places for children and he had received no complaints about boards failing to comply with health and safety issues.

"Some parents would say it is an issue. Some parents would say it is nit-picking."