More pay to teach 'gangsta' students

Teachers want more pay for staff who work in problem schools, and also want colleges to be secretly classified by the number of violent, disruptive or anti-social pupils on their rolls.

They warn that "damaged" or high-risk pupils are displaying "gangsta-style" behaviour at school, abusing substances, bullying classmates, intimidating people or committing violence.

This has made recruiting teachers difficult at many of the poorest, low-decile schools and comes as the children's commissioner investigates school violence.

A discussion paper, to be presented at the Post Primary Teachers Association national conference this month, says high-risk pupils often have severe behavioural problems, poor literacy and numeracy skills, and high truancy rates.

Disruptive in class, they require intensive one-on-one remedial teaching, but schools lack adequate resources to meet their needs.

Combined with educational failure and problems at home, these difficult young people have become a "volatile mix for the classroom and a potential `time bomb' for society", the paper says.

"They are uncooperative, disruptive and often fractious. There are those students whose social conditioning has made them adopt oppositional, antagonistic and sometimes violent behaviour in the classroom.

"They may come from abusive situations or have suffered from social neglect in their own lives."

The paper recommends higher salary incentives for teachers who choose to work in hard-to-staff schools, to help overcome acute recruitment problems.

It also calls for a confidential at-risk index to identify schools with more problem pupils that need more staff and greater support.

A survey had been carried out into anti-social behaviour at Hutt Valley and Wellington schools. The findings are due to be made known at the conference.

Secondary Principals Association president Peter Gall said poorer schools often faced bigger problems with disruptive pupils and hurdles attracting staff.

"The kids are just harder work to keep them engaged. People, when they've got a choice, prefer to go elsewhere, unless they're martyrs."

He warned that an at-risk school register could backfire if made public, by tarring schools' reputations, making them even less attractive to families and teachers.

PPTA president Robin Duff said the ideas were recommendations only.

The index could help officials track difficult pupils, providing an accurate idea of their numbers "and some sort of idea of the extent of the difficulties".

The Education Ministry refused to comment on calls for salary incentives or an index of schools with problem pupils, saying ministry staff had not read the online conference paper.

But senior manager Jim Greening said specialist teachers worked with children as young as preschool age whose behaviour was disruptive, severe or challenging.