A teacher at a Hawke's Bay school is being investigated for allegedly striking two students.

Hawke's Bay Today has chosen not to name the school or teacher, who has not been stood down.

Both the police and the Education Council were conducting separate investigations and declined to comment as they "do not comment on matters under investigation."

The school's principal said "obviously we do take issues and complaints seriously and we've got a comprehensive issues and complaints procedure in place to deal with this which is followed."

"Management has undertaken a thorough investigation of the situation and made recommendations to the board, police were notified, Education Council have been notified and they are both conducting their own separate investigation so until that process is concluded there is not much more I can say."

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The principal confirmed that the teacher was still working for the school as it has found the teacher is not a risk to the students.

"We obviously take complaints seriously and we followed due process and notified everyone applicable throughout that whole process. We've notified the people we are obliged to."

To his knowledge, he believed no further incidents involving other teachers at the school had taken place previously.

Hawke's Bay Today understands the school became aware of problems more than a year ago, with a child being allegedly exposed to what was described as emotional bullying by the teacher. It was claimed the child became so traumatised they started to wet their bed.

The principal said he understood the "matter was dealt with separately", but refused to confirm whether it was the same teacher.

As well as alleged physical harm, there have been further reports of alleged emotional bullying on many children, which had not been investigated.

The school trust board chairman said "there was a complaint that was investigated and it's been processed and we've referred to the appropriate authorities and it's still an unresolved matter in so far as those authorities are concerned".

"When the school was made aware of concerns, the school dealt with it as quickly as they possibly could and it obviously lasted for a few days in order to be able to ascertain as much factual information as we possibly could, so I am satisfied that it was investigated thoroughly."

He said the school "places in very high regard student welfare, student wellbeing, the safety of students as it does the staff".

"[The school] prides itself as any school does in having very high standards of behaviour both from the students and from the staff and if there is anything that the school hears that is beneath that standard, then the school will address that with the utmost seriousness and thoroughness."

He was unaware of other alleged incidents, but said "if the school was aware of other incidents then it would be obviously highly responsible for the school to investigate accordingly".