Attendance Update

School Hours

Edgars Creek Secondary College starts the school day at 8.50 am. The day ends at 3.08 pm.

Our session times are:

Students have access to a live version of their timetable through the Compass app and website. Each student has been provided with a login and password - their schedule with have up-to-date room changes and any other events that they are a part of.

Attendance

We're now halfway into Term 1, and average attendance across Edgars Creek Secondary College is sitting at 78.95% of students attending scheduled classes.

For each year level, an average of

• Year 7 – 86.54% of students are attending their classes
• Year 8 – 74.02% of students are attending their classes
• Year 9 - 76.30% of students are attending their classes.

Schooling is compulsory for young people aged from 6 to 17 years (unless a formal exemption from attendance or enrolment has been granted). For all year levels, students are expected to maintain at least 90% attendance over the year.

At VCE, which is not too far off for some of our students, students are expected to attend a minimum of 90% of timetabled classes in order to pass each unit. 

Why Is Attendance Important?

Daily attendance is important for all children and young people to succeed in learning, but also to ensure that they do not fall behind both socially and developmentally. 

School participation maximises life opportunities for children and young people, by providing them with education and support networks. Schools help people to develop important skills, knowledge, and values that set them up for further learning and participation in their community.

For more information and strategies that parents can use at home to help improve student attendance,  please visit: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/principals/participation/everydaycountssecparent.pdf

DET Attendance Guidelines

The Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) expect students 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, or
• the student is registered for home schooling and has only a partial enrolment in a school for particular activities.

For more information on the DET's  attendance guidelines, please visit: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/parents/going-to-school/Pages/attendance-missing-school.aspx#link58

Using Compass to Provide Explanations for Absences and Lateness

Edgars Creek Secondary College reports all attendance data directly to the DET as this is a requirement. 

Sometimes, there are unavoidable or legitimate reasons for a student's absence or lateness.

Parents will receive a notification on their child's Compass newsfeed whenever there is unexplained lateness or absence. By clicking on this notification (see the image above), parents can approve and explain the lateness or absence. 

Parents can also advise of future absences and lateness with explanations, which will automatically update rolls and notify each of the child's teachers.

For parents accessing via a smartphone: you will need to open Compass in a browser (click on the Menu and then 'Open in Browser'.

Lateness

'I'm only a couple of minutes late...'

It's surprising when you think about it, but if a student is late by 15 minutes every day, they have missed up to two weeks of school over the year.

At the moment, overall unexplained lateness is:

• Year 7 – 3.1% of students
• Year 8 – 4.2% of students
• Year 9 – 2.8% of students

Nearly 14% of lateness across the school day is happening in the morning, at Home Group time.

Starting the School Day For Success

The beginning of the school day is an important time for students. They receive important updates and news during Home Group (8.50 am - 8.58 am).

We can all think of a time that we might have been late to an appointment, or even to work. How stressful did it make you feel? Arriving on time gives students the opportunity to calmly settle into their school day by glancing over their timetable and organising their resources for their first class and the day.