Attendance has been a hot topic in the news lately and all political parties are working on how they are intending to support students returning to school post Covid
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We are incredibly blessed and appreciative as a teaching community to have attendance statistics at Villa Maria College standing at 91.3% for Term 1, indicating that most of our students are attending school regularly. By the Ministry of Education’s definition, this means regularly attending school more than 90% or an average of 9 days a fortnight.
Parents who are comfortable with their child missing school are more than twice as likely to have a child who misses school regularly, a new study has shown. ERO says new insights have found what the biggest drivers of children going to school are and what families and schools can do to help. “We have found that many parents don’t value going to school regularly and this really matters, ERO Education Evaluation Centre head Ruth Shinoda says.” ERO found four in ten parents are comfortable with their child missing a week or more of school a term and learners who miss a week each term will have missed out on more than a year of schooling by the time they are 16.
“We also found that when parents let children miss school on a particular day, for example to avoid an activity, children are more likely to miss school regularly. Letting children miss school sometimes can shape their attitudes to going to school. “It is really important that children see going to school every day as important…schools cannot solve the attendance crisis alone. But they can help parents to understand the impact of missing school and how often their children are going to school.” Interestingly, I looked at absences for our school activity days this year: Friday 17th February Sports Day 119 students absent (medical), Tuesday 21st Feburary Swimming Sports Day 172 students absent (medical), Thursday 27th April Cross Country 108 students absent (medical).
It’s challenging to address attendance in a college that operates at over 90% of students regularly attending. But like all areas in life there is always room for improvement, particularly for our activity days, and missing even a few days impacts on a student’s attitude to learning and to school itself. Thank you, parents, for helping your children to succeed simply by getting them to school every day.
Blessings,
Megan