New guidelines will be released this year to ensure teachers are aware of what's appropriate in the classroom.

The Education Council is working on a Code of Professional Responsibility for teachers, which is due out in July. It updates the Council’s current code of ethics.

There were 22 teachers struck off the teaching registry in 2016, and 118 complaints that are yet to be resolved.

Figures released under the Official Information Act show that of those 22 teachers, seven were struck off for sexual misconduct.

Eight were for non-contact sexual behaviour, one was for aggressive behaviour and physical handling, and the others for fraud, dishonesty, or other relationship and employment matters.

Manager of teacher practice Andrew Greig said there are good processes in place to ensure such behaviour is dealt with.

"Where there are concerns principals, employers at early childcare centres, they do report that to us and as soon as they report that to us we carry out an investigation."

Greig said this behaviour isn't common in the profession.

"We are disappointed that there are some teachers that have been struck off for that sort of behaviour but we need to look at in the context of it. In the context of 100,000 teachers it's a very very tiny percentage."

Greig said the new code will go some way towards stamping that sort of behaviour out completely "to ensure that the 100,000 teachers in New Zealand are very professional and also acting appropriately in front of our students."