The department’s statistics do not reflect the more common short suspension (up to and including four days), imposed for continued disobedience – disobeying staff instructions, disrupting other students, or alcohol and tobacco use – or aggressive behaviour, including verbal abuse and abuse transmitted electronically. Individual schools maintain a register of students who have received short suspensions.
But suspensions and expulsions are a last resort – the preference is to have schoolchildren in school and to deal with the underlying causes of misbehaviour. Learning results are inextricably linked to behaviour.