The number of students who have been “excluded” this year from WA public schools for aggressively attacking staff members is five times higher than the number recorded in 2016 and 2017.

In the first eight months of this year, 45 students were removed from their schools for being physically aggressive towards school staff, almost double the number recorded for the entire year of 2018.

Aggressive student incidents have spiked in 2019. Credit:Janie Barrett

The figures come after the state government last year introduced ‘Let’s take a stand together’, an action plan to tackle violence in schools that gave principals the power to immediately move to exclude any student who physically attacked staff.

Exclusion means the student is removed from the school either permanently or for a period of time, with every exclusion order to be approved by the director general of the Department of Education.