STAFFWRITERS

 

SCHOOL principals will soon have the power to suspend or expel students for their behaviour outside school.

The state government has announced that, effective day one Term 3 this year, Victorian principals will have the authority to suspend or expel students when their behaviour outside school or online puts fellow students and staff at serious risk, a power currently restricted to within the school gate.

The changes bring Victoria into line with New South Wales and South Australia and will address concerns around harmful behaviour that happens outside school hours – particularly online – but affects student and staff safety.

School principals will use these expanded powers only when necessary to protect their school community. With these expanded powers, the government is putting in place the appropriate framework to ensure school leaders have the authorisation to act where necessary.

The new powers build on the $10.4 million invested in the recent budget to expand the school-wide Positive Behaviour Support program, which helps schools teach students how to behave appropriately and create safe spaces for learning.

Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ben Carroll said the strengthened powers sent a clear message that harmful behaviour outside of school or online had consequences.

“The safety of students, teachers and school staff is our top priority – we’re investing in programs that foster more respectful schools and acting to protect school communities,” he said.

“This builds on our nation-leading ban on mobile phones in schools and our support of a social media ban for kids – keeping kids safe in the classroom and online.”

RMIT University Lecturer in Early Childhood, Dr Elise Waghorn welcomed the move, but said it was also a tricky space. “Giving principals new powers in this area is a good idea,” she said.

“I’m sure there’s going to be lots of support around it, but I’m also mindful that schools may feel it’s another thing that they have to monitor.

“As technology advances, it’s only going to get more challenging to be able to support children in this space. We need to give a really clear message that it’s not the school or the parents in isolation, we need to work together and prevent this behaviour as a community.”

Dr Waghorn believes there should be more emphasis on educating parents and young people about unsafe behaviours.

“We’re constantly putting more pressure on teachers. Principals or teachers shouldn’t feel they are put in a position to expel children based on their online activity,” she said.

“It’s not enough to just expel children; there needs to be education.

“We know that prevention is better than cure. So, we need to look at what we are implementing in schools and in our curriculum to teach children about safety online, but also the impact of online bullying.

“Schools need to communicate to parents what they’re doing within the school grounds, so that these conversations can be followed up at home, and the same continuous message is given to children about the expectations around social media use and online communication.

Meanwhile, the government will begin implementing several recommendations of the Independent Review into Teacher Administration.

The review found seven main issues and made 28 recommendations to reduce paperwork for staff.

The government is continuing to consider many of the recommendations, but will implement the following recommendations from day one of Term 1, 2026:

  • Track administration and compliance workload and set improvement targets;
  • Streamlining individual student learning, health, and wellbeing plans for 2026;
  • Remove ‘recommended’ individual education plan guidance;
  • Simplify semesterly reporting;
  • Simplify and reduce travel applications for 2025, and;
  • Provide administrative support for teacher teams.

A new operational teaching assistant will also be trialled from the second half of this year to help teachers with administrative tasks like collecting notes and payments, collating learning materials, and entering data.