The cards are part of a behavioural management system which sets misbehaving pupils on the straight and narrow, principal Christina Herrick says.
The system incorporates eight steps and coded cards which relate to handling minor through to serious offending.
The first step was when an incident which occurred in a classroom was dealt with by a teacher.
If the problem continued, it would be referred to the dean, who would meet the pupil and their parents, which indicated a more serious step, she said.
The pupil would be involved in setting behavioural goals for themselves which would be monitored by teachers and the pupil's parents daily.
After two to three weeks, the issue would usually be resolved, Mrs Herrick said.
The coded cards range from a green for poor attendance through to red for the most serious of misdemeanours.
The college also used counselling, teacher support and a detention system as part of its discipline programme, she said.
The programme had been in place since the school became Taieri College in 2004.
"It does its job and it's working quite well," Mrs Herrick said.
She believed the key to ensuring pupils behaved well at school was to get the disciplinary programme and relationship with the pupils right.
"You have to show them where the boundaries are and be fair and just."
She believed the system was well received by pupils as they "generally pull their heads in".
Of the 1064 at the college, she said only six were displaying what were classified as serious behavioural problems.
