A primary school teacher forced students aged 11 and 12 to strip to their underwear and stand with their noses against a tree to learn "tough love".
Ngamihi Moses, then a teacher at Whakatāne Intermediate School, was charged with serious misconduct in a New Zealand Teachers' Council Disciplinary tribunal in November 2021.
The tribunal found "young students were placed at risk and later humiliated" in what they described as "a gross abuse of power" that had the "potential to cause them psychological harm".
On November 11, 2019, two classes from the school went to a camp at Tokikapu Marae in the Waitomo area.
On the last night of the camp, six year eight students "misbehaved" and were told to pack their bags and get in the school van where they would be driven to a location to "give them a fright".
One of the students started to cry, while another was "extremely angry" at going in the van.
Rose Kara, a senior teacher and the camp leader, told parent helpers Moses was going to do a "tough love thing" with the students.
Moses drove the six students to an unfamiliar location in Ōtorohanga, where she stopped at a bus stop and instructed the students to get out of the van, which they did.
She told them to walk back to Whakatāne - two and a half hours' drive away - or walk 10km back to camp and she drove off.
Three of the students chose to walk back to camp while the other three chose to head to Whakatāne.
The kids walking back to camp were approached by Moses about 20 minutes later when she asked them where the other three students were.
They told her they had gone towards Whakatāne, so she drove off to try and find them.
When she couldn't find them, she returned to pick up the kids walking to camp before looking again for the other three children unsuccessfully before calling police.
The three missing students walking to Whakatāne were not located until after midnight.
Once all six students were back at the school camp, the three who had chosen to walk back to camp were allowed to go to bed while the other three had to complete a punishment.
The three students were directed by Moses to strip down to their underwear and a t-shirt and put their noses against a tree.
They had to do that until they apologised for their behaviour and in Moses' opinion, two of the three students showed "sufficient remorse" and were allowed to return to bed. The third student was made to stand for an additional 20 minutes.
The next morning Moses took these three children home, told the families about the incident and apologised. The school decided Moses should write a formal apology to each family and received a warning and the principal informed the Teachers' Council of the incident.
The school has put new protocols in place to prevent similar incidents on future excursions.
Moses is now working at Tarawera High School, according to the school’s website.
