Every day counts – improving student attendance
Welcome to the student attendance website.
This site centralises useful information across all areas of student attendance.
It covers why student attendance is important, how it can be effectively managed and how attendance rates can be improved. It outlines the legal requirements regarding attendance and provides practical advice on how to reduce truancy.
This site is updated regularly to include the latest information and initiatives from the Ministry of Education.
June 2007 update
The Minister of Education, Steve Maharey, has released three documents related to student engagement. They are:
- Attendance Guidelines (PDF 1MB)
The Student Support Handbook is designed to become your central collection point for student support material from the Ministry of Education. You can download the accompanying cover letter from the Secretary of Education (PDF 26KB).
- Attendance, Absence and Truancy in New Zealand Schools 2006: Final Report
This report documents the final results of a survey conducted in the week 21–25 August 2006 to capture a ‘week in the life’ of attendance at school in New Zealand. Responses were received from 2,216 schools, representing 91 per cent of schools surveyed. This and past reports are available at Attendance and Absence in New Zealand Schools publication home page. - The Student Engagement Annual Report 2006
This is a national report on student engagement which includes an analysis of stand-downs and suspensions, exclusions, expulsions, and early leaving exemptions from the previous school year. Previous reports are available at http://educationcounts.edcentre.govt.nz/themes/homepages/
stand-downs_etal/index.html.
A press statement on attendance issues will be available on the Minister of Education’s website on 14 June 2007.
February 2007 update
Additional attendance initiatives
The Ministry of Education currently has several ‘school attendance’ initiatives underway, including:
- An attendance resource kit – which will provide schools, parents and caregivers, and community groups with practical ways in which they can work together to increase school attendance.
- The progressive implementation of eARs – a computerised attendance system, which will enable schools to manage, record, and understand attendance data accurately and comprehensively.
- Streamlining the truancy prosecution process – to provide access to Crown legal support in cases where absence is unjustified, persistent, and parent-condoned.
Schools, DTS providers, and other key stakeholders will be kept up to date as these initiatives progress.
For further information, contact your local Ministry of Education office.
The Student Engagement Initiative (SEI)
Established in October 2003, the Student Engagement Initiative (SEI) was developed by the Ministry of Education to address truancy rates, suspensions, exclusions, and early leaving exemptions (ELX) schools.
SEI is designed to help define best practice, improve policies and procedures, and contribute to a reduction in the rates of truancy, suspensions and ELXs in target areas and schools.
Under SEI, the Ministry of Education is working with individual schools to improve their attendance, suspension, and ELX rates to become equal to or less than the national average rates.
For information about SEI, please contact your local Ministry of Education office.
Why student attendance is important
Improved outcomes for students
Regular attendance at school is fundamental to student learning. Students who attend school regularly are more likely to achieve educational success, and increase their career and life options.
Promoting the benefits of regular attendance to students, teachers, early childhood centre staff, parents, and community groups will help create a culture where regular school attendance is the norm.
It is not only students who benefit from regular attendance. Teachers, parents and caregivers, and the wider community all benefit when students are attending school and achieving. These benefits include greater student safety, community well-being, and a sense of connectedness for all.
Schools, families, and communities can work together to send a strong collective message about the importance of going to school.
Legal requirements
There are legislative and regulatory requirements for boards of trustees, and parents and caregivers, with regards to attendance.
Safety of students
While there is no absolute requirement to make contact with parents and caregivers in every case, it is accepted good practice that schools attempt to contact parents and caregivers if a child does not turn up to school as expected.
It is assumed that boards of trustees, through school staff, will take all practicable steps to ascertain the whereabouts of absent students.
It is expected that each board of trustees will have its own communication procedures in place and that these will vary according to the size of the school and the local issues it faces - such as caregivers without telephones.
The Education Review Office monitors such procedures as part of its review process.