by Coll Mackenzie

Attendance Article

Term 2

As mentioned in our April newsletter, attendance will be an ongoing focus for 2023. As part of this attendance focus we are beginning to acknowledge high student attendance and it was exciting to acknowledge our learners with over 90% attendance in our first assembly back for the term. It has been really promising to hear our students talk about attendance around the school. Having this front of mind is one of the first steps to improving school attendance. I would also like to say a big thank you to all of our parents/caregivers who I know have been engaging in positive attendance conversations with their children, it makes a world of difference.

Moving forward, we are wanting to share attendance tips and tricks with the community. Our first tip to increase attendance relates to out of school appointments. An observation we have made is that a number of students who have under 90% attendance have a number of out of school appointments during the school day. These include; dentist appointments, driving tests, specialist appointments, physiotherapy, driving lessons and even hair appointments! Now we know that one of the limitations of living in a small and somewhat isolated community is that booking these appointments is sometimes difficult and for some specialist appointments we simply need to take an appointment when we can. However, it would be great if we could think twice when booking appointments that there is more flexibility around. Hair and beauty appointments are more than manageable after school and on the weekend, driving tests could be saved for the holidays and driving lessons could often happen in the afternoon. Another thing to consider is even if we do have to book these appointments during term time and during our school day, try to book these towards the end or beginning of the day. This might mean half a day missed instead of a whole school day.

We know that most of the time our students' families put great consideration into when they book appointments, and we thank you for this. If we can continue to have this front of mind when booking appointments moving forward, we know that we will see positive shifts in student attendance and in turn, learning.