In Australia’s schools, classroom disruption has become one of the most persistent challenges, eating into precious teaching time and leaving both teachers and students worse off.
New research from the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) has now put a number on it.
Based on analysis of the experiences of 377 schoolteachers, the report says more than half of teachers surveyed (54%) estimate losing at least one-fifth of teaching time to behavioural disruptions, while a further 16% report losing most lessons.
The findings have reignited discussion about classroom management and student behaviour, with one expert saying the research should motivate schools to ask the question: what is happening for students before disruptive behaviour becomes visible in the classroom?
The signs schools miss until it's too late
Nikki Bonus is Founder and CEO of Life Skills GO, an Australian-built whole-school platform that helps schools identify changes in student engagement, readiness to learn and broader patterns earlier.
Having built Life Skills GO on 18 million check-ins worth of student data, Bonus was asked to explain what separates schools with genuine early identification from those still waiting on attendance and behaviour rolls to flag a problem.
"A school with strong early identification does not wait for attendance, behaviour or disengagement to become a problem before responding," Bonus told The Educator. "From the start of the day, teachers can see how students have arrived, their readiness to learn and any change in patterns across belonging, wellbeing and engagement."
That hat gives staff the context to make better professional judgements, adjust support and act earlier.
"Because of the rule sets behind Life Skills GO, even students who are masking or not presenting obvious signs of difficulty can be surfaced," she explained.
"Where a student needs further attention, that signal is visible to the right people across the school, including those responsible for wellbeing, attendance and behaviour. Support can begin that morning, before a concern escalates or learning is lost."
Building a habit, not a bolt-on program
With school leaders under mounting pressure to show fast results on behaviour and attendance, Bonus was asked what advice they'd give a principal keen to build earlier-signal thinking into their school without it becoming just another initiative that fades away.
"It cannot be another initiative," she said. "We have deliberately integrated it and built it into the systems, structures and daily operating rhythm of the school."
Bonus said that from day one, everyone needs to understand the why and see the value.
"Attendance, belonging, wellbeing, engagement and student voice is continuously triangulated in real time, with the heavy lifting of analysis and reporting done for staff, not by them," she said.
"The right insight should reach the right person at the right time and feed directly into existing executive, learning support, planning, parent and carer meetings, daily attendance and behaviour management and reporting cycles."
Most importantly, start slowly, said Bonus.
"Build the habit, be deliberate and stay consistent," she said. "When it strengthens existing practice without taking from teaching, it becomes embedded."
The story behind every attendance record
For Bonus, genuine visibility means school leaders, teachers, parents and carers all seeing the whole child, not just a slice of data.
"Principals should be asking whether their leadership teams have the right data, evidence and visibility to understand the whole child before concerns escalate," she said, adding that behaviour rarely sits in isolation. "Attendance issues do not just happen. They are often a signal of dysregulation, disconnection, unmet need or something a young person cannot yet articulate."
Bonus said leaders should look across attendance, behaviour, belonging, engagement, wellbeing and student voice to identify patterns, understand context and guide professional judgement.
"They should also ask whether staff have the knowledge and confidence to interpret those signals consistently," she said. "The goal is earlier, coordinated support that strengthens the conditions for students to belong, engage, attend, learn and thrive."
Bonus pointed out that visibility must also work at every level, not just the classroom.
"School leaders and Heads of Wellbeing need to see beyond attendance and behaviour data alone, so they can understand what's driving disengagement, coordinate support earlier and strengthen the conditions that let students attend, learn and thrive," she said.
"Classroom teachers need to see, know, support and care for every young person in front of them, so earlier insight into belonging and readiness to learn reduces guesswork and frees up time for teaching rather than piecing information together."
Bonus said parents and carers need confidence their child is understood as a whole person, not "reduced to a percentage, an incident or a result", and that change is caught early enough for support to make a difference.
"Life Skills GO was built hand in hand with Australian schools over nine years, after we spent fifteen years identifying the problem within schools," she said.
"It's built for Australian schools, educators, students and families, rather than a program imported from another country, and with deep knowledge of every role within and around a school, so everyone sees value from the moment it's implemented."