Bullying incident ends with injured student in hospital

A south Auckland high school student was critically injured yesterday when he was attacked by bullies.

James Cook High School principal Grant McMillan confirmed a 16-year-old was taken to hospital after the incident.

Police were notified by St John Ambulance about 11.30am that a student had been assaulted at the Manurewa school.

McMillan said four students were involved in a bullying incident during the morning interval.

‘‘The student was foot-tripped and punched once, and he fell over and hit his head on the ground,’’ McMillan said.

School nursing staff made an assessment and called the ambulance, McMillan said. ‘‘Because it was a bullying incident the police also attended.

‘‘Our priority was to look after the victim first, one of my nurses went to hospital with him and when she left he was sitting up.’’

McMillan said police had spoken to students and staff who witnessed the assault.

‘‘Bullying is something we don’t accept and we’ve done a lot of work over the recent weeks.

‘‘The students involved will feel the full brunt of the schools’ disciplinary systems and be held to account,’’ McMillan said.

A school assembly was held and McMillan reminded the students of the school’s values.

A Counties Manukau DHB spokeswoman said yesterday afternoon that the patient was now stable but awaiting further medical attention.

A year ago a specialist police project targeting south Auckland schools was axed. It had six officers working with James Cook and 12 other schools regarded as being high risk for student safety. The Cops in Schools programme was credited with strengthening relationships between police and local communities and with suppressing youth gangs.

But in 2017 the officers were diverted to more general Youth Aid duties. Yesterday, McMillan said a replacement programme was working well with local police stations.

After the assault, one parent said the south Auckland school was no longer safe.

The father said there had been fights at the school and people had even walked past the school with guns.

One father rushed to the school which his 14-year-old daughter attends.

The man told Stuff he wasn’t sure if the school staff had much control of the school culture.

James Cook received a critical report from the Education Review Office a year ago.

The ERO said the school’s board needed to look at matters of staff, welfare and finance, though it concluded the school was improving under McMillan who has been in the job two years.

In May, head of guidance and wellbeing at the school, Catherine Hawke, spoke about bullying, saying she had to deal with such issues every day.

When she started working at the Manurewa school two years ago, she said she was at first ‘‘surprised at how unkind people were to each other’’.

But she then realised that ‘‘a lot of the young people come from distressed families’’.