Attendance Policy
St Thomas of Canterbury College
Everyday Matters for Parents and Whānau:
The government expectation is for students to regularly attend school, and we need your help to ensure that students at St Thomas have the best opportunity for success. The government has set a goal of 80% of students attending school regularly and more than 90% by 2030. To achieve this, they have introduced the Stepped Attendance Response Plan (STAR) to ensure no child is left behind.
Attending school regularly ensures that we can support each student to achieve academically, access extracurricular opportunities and build healthy positive relationships. To achieve this, we need to work together to set high standards for students to arrive at school on time, every day and with the correct uniform and equipment. We understand that for some whānau and students at times this can be difficult, so we have reviewed our attendance policies and systems to ensure we maintain open communication between school and home.
Under the Education and Training Act 2020:
A student is required to attend school whenever it is open, and the Board must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the school's students attend the school when it is open (section 36)
A parent of a student commits an offence if the student, while enrolled at a school, does not attend the school as required (section 244)
Parents/caregivers have a responsibility to ensure students attend and need to be aware of the importance of attendance, attendance requirements, and how open their student is attending.
The school has a responsibility to ensure attendance, and this policy sets out the ways attendance is encouraged, monitored, followed up and reviewed.
Legal requirements for school attendance:
Take all reasonable steps to make sure students attend when the school is open
Keep an attendance record for each enrolled student
Have an absence notification process
Use an approved electronic attendance register and Ministry-approved attendance codes to record attendance.
Parents and legal guardians are required to:
Enrol their child at a registered school when they turn 6 years old
Make sure their child (including enrolled 5-year-olds) attends school every day the school is open until they are at least 16 years old.
Failure to do so can result to the school or us taking legal action, including prosecution under Sections 243 and 244 of the Education and Training Act 2020.
Our Attendance Policy – What You Need to Know
To align with Ministry of Education guidelines, the following expectations are in place at St Thomas:
Notify Us: If your child is absent, please contact the school through the absences option on helix or by phone, email, or message as early as possible.
Explain the Reason: It's important to let us know the reason for your child’s absence.
Justified Absences: We understand that there are genuine reasons for being away, and we will work with you to support your child.
Every week each parent will receive an automated notification outlining their son’s attendance statistics. This will include each class attendance statistics and an overall percentage of the weekly attendance data. The email notification will also clearly outline the student’s attendance patterns in alignment with the Ministry’s stepped attendance response system allowing for key people i.e. staff, parents, coaches to monitor and work together to ensure students attendance is tracked and outcomes are met.
One outcome of continual truancy or attendance lateness is our community service program. This is one hour of service that is given back to the school to make up for the lost time from the truancy and is done after school on a Wednesday.
There is an expectation that this attendance system will have a direct link to co-curricular activities in particular high performance (see Sports Code of Conduct). The expectation of being involved in our top sports teams means that there is a high expectation for general school attendance. When attendance is at a concerning level i.e. Yellow, Orange or Red, then the key staff will connect with the relevant people to come up with a plan. This could range from supportive measures, parent level meetings, setting up attendance plans or a removal from the co-curricular event.
The Following email template and Stepped Attendance Response (STAR) will be used to monitor, track and respond to attendance patterns and issues at St Thomas.
Helpful Links:
https://www.education.govt.nz/news/refreshed-attendance-codes-term-1-2025