STAR attendance
A Focus on Attendance
Susan Jennison — February 11, 2025
The Government set a target of 80% of students being present at school for 90% of the term by 2030.
From the start of this year, schools are required to adhere to several new attendance requirements aligned to the Ministry of Education's Stepped Attendance Response (STAR).
Among these new requirements are:
the use of new codes for attendance which reduce the discretion that a school has for coding reasons for non-attendance;
sharing students' attendance history when they move to a new school;
attendance data being reported to the Ministry daily instead of weekly; and
clear steps for schools to take when children's absence reaches 5, 10 or 15 days within one term.
Evidence is clear that regular attendance is really important for learning, wellbeing, and life outcomes. Research from the National Centre for Educational Statistics (NCES) in Australia clearly demonstrates that students who attend school regularly have been shown to achieve at higher levels than students who do not.
As a school, we intend to continue to do our part to support families to send their children to school regularly. In addition to minimise disruption to programmes where possible, we seek to make great connections between teachers and the children in their class and to provide learning programmes which are engaging and motivating.
Schooling is very definitely a partnership. If you're experiencing any barriers in getting your children to school regularly, we'd love to meet with you and identify what we can do to help. We have access to a range of agencies and supports and our staff would be very happy to meet with you to provide whatever help we can.
