Attendance matters: Thinking outside the box

By law, kids in New Zealand aged from six to 16 are required to go to school every day - but the reality is that many aren’t. Absenteeism has been an issue for years and, although the country saw a small lift in attendance last year, more action is needed. Over the past five weeks, Kate Russell has been looking at school attendance. This week she speaks with a local secondary school principal.

A Nelson secondary school principal says more funding for support services such as a nurse, a social worker, and even food would go “a long way” in lifting attendance.

“There seems to be a focus from the Government on the data and improving attendance without a focus on addressing the underlying reasons why attendance is an issue,” says Claire O’Fee, tumuaki/principal at Nelson College for Girls.

The college is already thinking outside the box and building more flexibility into school to tackle the problem, such as hybrid or customised timetables.

This includes getting students into Health School (for ākonga who are too ill to attend full-time education at their regular school), Te Kura (New Zealand’s state distance education provider) and work experience.

“We’ve had to get creative with some student’s timetables to get a mix of education and socialisation whilst still giving them some mental health space,” says Claire, who is now in her second year in the principal’s role.

“Whānau hui/regular contact are our main ways of supporting students and also referring to agencies if they can help with mental health, anger issues, family poverty and financial issues.”

Claire also says that “huge changes in curriculum and assessment” mean that teachers have less time for pastoral care, which is “essential” in addressing poor attendance.

“We will continue to work on our pedagogy to meet the changing needs of the students in front of us, however there is now no regional funding for this outside of literacy and numeracy, with no increase in our operations grant to offset the loss of ability to apply for external support for pedagogy,” she explains.

“I would say that the impact on the ground of the current Government’s changes is huge and I’m not sure they realise this.”

Claire says that gains in attendance in the past year have been small, although the reporting of absences has improved.

“The new attendance codes this year will make things a lot easier, they are much simpler.”

The number of codes has been reduced from 26 to 15 with many being merged for easier reporting.

The school’s pastoral team also sends whānau a ‘weekly attendance summary’ email each Sunday, which also includes the student’s attendance rates for the term so far.

Claire says medical absences account for over half of their absences; however, “it is not always easy to understand what the medical issue is”.

“Whānau are much more conscious since Covid of not sending their children to school when they are a little sick,” she says.

“The advice around this has shifted now so we potentially need to share this more regularly with our whānau. We are seeing an increase in school refusal post-Covid and sometimes whānau may call this in as sick rather than reaching out for help - we would encourage whānau to talk with us.”

Families taking holidays during term time is “definitely a factor” too, she adds.

“Whānau save hundreds or thousands of dollars by booking flights before the term ends and then incorporating the holidays or taking a week or two off at the start of each term to take into account the holidays.

“We have a large number of whānau who have taken trips during term time. Sometimes this is due to the timing of an important whānau event, but any flights booked during school holidays are more expensive.”

Claire offers some good advice for whānau to support attendance at school:

- Making attending school a given rather than something that is ok to be missed.
- Contact the school early if there are problems like school refusal.
- Have consequences for truanting classes - what will happen at home?
- Work with their child's kaiārahi/whoever the point of contact is at school to find solutions early.
- Encourage their child to find the things they like at school and amplify them.
- Encourage their child to be involved in school - co-curricular activities help students build a sense of belonging.

“We really need our whānau to get on board in supporting daily attendance,” she says.

“We’re open to having kōrero with whānau to find strategies that will support them.”