Attendance and Data Update

Attendance continues to be a challenge at the College, especially as we head into the winter months. The Department of Education and Training (DET)'s advice on attendance remains the same:

It’s the law that children 6 to 17 years old go to school or be home schooled. You (as a parent) are legally responsible for making sure your child goes to school every day.

In recent weeks, you may have noticed an increase in the number of SMS notifications that you are receiving about your child, whether relating to an unexplained absence or to a series of lateness instances.

The DET is very clear on the legal requirements to explain any absence that their child has: 

"Let the school know as soon as possible and explain why your child can’t come to school. Each school will have a preferred way to do this. It may be by phone call, email or app." (https://www.vic.gov.au/attendance-and-missing-school)

Schools are required to contact you to ensure that your child is safe. Part of this is to make you aware that either a) you haven't explained an absence or b) your child is not where they are supposed to be. 

Managing Your Child's Attendance

The main approved reason for absence include:

• Health and Wellbeing: students must be at home if they are too ill to come to school. In recent times, this has been even more important in helping to reduce the spread of viruses such as COVID-19 and Influenza (flu). Broadly speaking, health and wellbeing may include appointments that cannot be scheduled outside of school hours, and does include absences for bereavement (funerals, death in the family etc).
• School Decision/Educational: any approved absences due to educational reasons (e.g. your child may be off-site doing a VET course elsewhere), at an excursion or on camp. 
• Other reasonable reasons include staying away for a cultural/religious observance, with the approval of the College Principal.

Other types of absences (e.g. extended holidays) need to be approved by the College. They are not considered by the DET to be a reasonable reason to be away from school.

The DET's policy on attendance states that:

 "Students are expected to attend the school in which they are enrolled, during normal school hours every day of each term, unless: there is an approved exemption from school attendance or attendance and enrolment for the student." 

Every Minute Counts: Reducing Lateness

A common view is that lateness is "not as bad" as an absence. Lateness is, in fact, a form of absence, and can have a very real impact on your child's learning across the course of their secondary school lives.

The graphic demonstrates how if your child is late to class even by just 10 minutes each day, this has a significant and exponential impact on their learning as the weeks, months and years progress. Those 10 minutes would add up to 40 days of learning between Years 7 and Year 12.

As always, please let the College know if you need any further support or advice relating to your child's attendance patterns. 

Have a restful and safe break,

Anthony Asta

Leading Teacher - Timetabling & Data Management