Walsh: Parents need to back schools on discipline

John Paul College Principal Patrick Walsh

A Rotorua principal says parents need to accept the consequences of their children's bad behaviour.

John Paul College principal and former New Zealand Secondary Principals' Association president Patrick Walsh said it was difficult for schools to uphold standards when parents undermined their authority.

Parents of students of St Bede's College in Christchurch hired a lawyer to apply for an injunction after two boys were suspended from its Maadi Cup team after they rode a baggage carousel into a restricted part of Auckland Airport.

Last year, a St John's College student who was suspended for refusing to cut his hair, was awarded $24,000 in costs.

"It seems to me on the St Bede and St John case, and there's been others, that unfortunately parents don't accept the natural consequences of their children's behaviour.

"It seems parents are using the law to get around what seems to be just bad behaviour and I don't think it's given them good life lessons. They need to teach them to take the punishment," Mr Walsh said.

"It undermines the authority of a principal to manage a school effectively. Teenagers, by inclination, push boundaries, and parents need to give support to schools to allow boards of trustees and principals to set those boundaries and ensure they are complied with. It's the same way if they break the law, they need to take the consequences with that."

Mr Walsh was also supportive of fellow principal Ally Gibbons of Rotorua Girls' High School. An independent report was released recently into the decision to stand down 23 of the school's Year 13 students when they left the school grounds after they were told to return to class last year.

"If you take case in point Rotorua Girls' High School, this tendency at the end of year to have pranks played on other schools. We had boys [from another school] run through here [John Paul College] - some of them were virtually naked and they squirted paint around our school, which cost considerable money to remove.

"It wasn't funny, it was actually criminally damaging and really upsetting for some of our young girls who had witnessed that.

"I think Ally Gibbons is trying to put an end to prank week and trying to set and enforce standards. Students should have complied with that and in my view [the decision to stand down students] was entirely reasonable," he said.

"The bottom line is all the girls accepted they left the school, and senior students, many of them were in leadership roles and you would have expected better from them."