Attendance Matters
Make Every Day Count
Every day matters for your child’s learning. Parents/Carers play an important role in ensuring students get to school and stay in school every day.
The more time your child attends school the greater their opportunity to learn, create social connections and improve their wellbeing.
Why attendance matters
Your child may fall behind in their subjects and this can have an impact on their learning in the long term.
Missing school for students means missing essential learning or time with friends.
All Australian school-age children are legally required to attend school every day. Read more about compulsory school attendance.
What you can do!
Building positive attendance habits
You can help build positive attendance habits by:
- helping your child learn the importance of punctuality and routine
- making sure your child arrives on time from the start of the school day, ready to take part
- reducing disruption to learning where you can, by planning any necessary appointments outside of school time
- contacting your school to explain any absences (within 7 days of the first day of any absence)
- making sure any holidays or medical appointments are taken outside school hours
- working with the school to encourage and support regular attendance.
Reasons for missing school
Being absent, late or leaving early
If your child misses school for any reason, please contact the school within 7 days to explain why.
If your child needs to arrive late or leave early, please notify the school.
If you have difficulty getting your child to school on time every day, please also contact your school. School staff are here to support you and your child to help them come to school.
Getting your school’s help and support
If you are concerned about your child's attendance at school or any other issues that may affect their attendance please speak with the school. It is important that schools and families work together to find solutions to improve attendance
Every parent has trouble getting their child out of bed and off to school now and then.
However, if your child is regularly asking to stay home and seems upset or worried about school, it could be a sign of a bigger problem if your child:
- seems upset or worried about going to school
- refuses to go to school, and always asks to stay home
- has a history of school refusal in the past.
- School refusal is different to ‘wagging’ or ‘jigging’ because it comes from a child’s anxiety about school.
Many children and young people will express a reluctance to go to school at different times. For a small number of these children and young people the difficulties around attending school escalates to become school refusal.
If you are experiencing difficulty getting your child to school, please contact us as we have many supports and resources available.