A teenager has been taken to hospital in a serious condition after he was assaulted at a Manurewa high school.
The 16-year-old James Cook High School student was the victim of a "bullying incident" during interval on Monday morning, according to principal Grant McMillan.
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He was tripped over and punched once by two or three other students in his year, before falling to the ground and hitting his head.
Staff and senior students rushed to his aid and called an ambulance immediately. The boy was taken to Middlemore Hospital where he is now in a stable condition, according to a hospital spokesperson.
Mr McMillan says the perpetrators of the incident would probably be suspended, then the Board of Trustees would decide whether they would return to school or not.
"[To] the students who have broken our expectations, we've got a very simple response: serious bullying involves police. We're trying to grow fine young citizens here."
He held an assembly on Monday afternoon to reassure students that there would be consequences for the bullying, which he believes may have been the culmination of a "falling-out" over the weekend.
He says the students involved in the assault had socialised with the victim in the past, and that there did not seem to be a pattern of bullying within the group.
When asked if James Cook High School had a bullying problem, Mr McMillan said: "It's a problem if it ever happens, so as of today it's a problem in our school."
He says the school regularly collects data on students' happiness, and that they had spent weeks talking about bullying in the lead-up to Pink Shirt Day on May 18.
Newshub.
