Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Carers, 

As previously communicated, we have been reviewing our late start arrangement for late starts 9-12. It is our responsibility to ensure that we are presenting the best quality education for our students and their families. That responsibility sits behind everything we do at St Luke's, and it requires us to look honestly at our own practices from time to time and ask whether they are still serving our students in the best way possible. Over the past two terms we have done exactly that with the late-start arrangement for Years 9 to 12. I am writing to share what we found and what we have decided.

How we reviewed the arrangement

The late-start arrangement was introduced by previous school leadership, drawing on local school data at the time, in response to the times, and on the reasonable premise that students can spend time away from the classroom and still achieve their learning outcomes. This was conducted post-COVID, and was based on the needs of the students at that time, which were different to our current student needs. It was put in place in good faith, for sound reasons, and it deserved a proper review rather than a quick judgement. Reviewing it carefully is part of our responsibility to present the best quality education we can.

The review ran across the entirety of this year, and had two parts.

The first was data. We examined attendance and lateness patterns across Years 9 to 12, including how punctuality on late-start days compared with the rest of the week, and whether variable start times were affecting the consistency of student routines more broadly. We looked at achievement data across the senior years, where attendance patterns, particularly lateness, showed up repeatedly as an early indicator of students not performing to their potential. 

The second was consultation. We surveyed teaching staff, students in Years 9 and 10, students in Years 11 and 12, and parents and carers. We asked staff about the effect on curriculum time, on student routines, on wellbeing, and on whether senior students were genuinely able to work through content independently without a teacher present. We asked students what they actually did with the time, and what they saw as its benefits and drawbacks. We asked parents how the arrangement worked for their family. No decision had been made when those surveys went out, and every response was read.

What the review told us

Students told us that the time was supportive of their wellbeing through allowing them to sleep in and reducing the time spent at school. Teachers told us that the arrangement was reducing the curriculum time available to them, and that senior students often struggled to work through content on their own, or at the same level as having a staff present. Our own data confirmed that the regularity of attendance and the timeliness of our students have been an ongoing concern, and that a variable start time makes that concern harder to address rather than easier. Wellbeing coordinators spoke about the difficulty in supporting students with their wellbeing while they were spending some of that time off site. 

We then weighed this against what the research tells us, because it is our responsibility to ensure that our decisions about student learning rest on evidence rather than habit. We also know that we have a responsibility to ensure that our students’ wellbeing and future are impacted by the work that we, and they, do now in this moment. 

The largest Australian study of its kind tracked more than 415,000 students in Western Australia and found that average NAPLAN achievement declined with any absence at all, and continued to decline as absence rates rose. The researchers found no threshold below which students could safely miss school and catch up, and the effects accumulated, appearing in achievement in later years as well as in the year the absence occurred.

More recent analysis from the Grattan Institute, covering close to a third of Australian government school students between 2017 and 2024, reached the same conclusion. Every day of school missed was associated with lower results in numeracy, reading and writing. The proportion of students attending regularly, meaning at least 90 per cent of the time, fell from 71 per cent in 2019 to 59 per cent in 2024. That analysis also noted that absence affects more than the absent student, adding to the load on teachers who must help students catch up and disrupting the learning of classmates who are attending regularly. The Australian Education Research Organisation states the principle simply: every day a student misses represents lost learning time.

Lateness works the same way in smaller increments. Research on tardiness has found that students who regularly arrive late miss opening instructions and the beginning of academic activities, and that teachers frequently need to re-teach that content, interrupting the class as a whole. This time is also when important review of previous concepts happen, which research around how the brain stores information in long term memory says is essential for student learning. 

We continue to recognise that learning happens outside the classroom, and independent study remains a genuine and important part of senior education that we will keep building into our programs. We also know what carries the greatest weight. In John Hattie's synthesis of thousands of studies of student achievement, the quality of teaching carries an effect size of 0.77 and the teacher-student relationship 0.74, against an average of 0.40 across all the influences he examined. A teacher in the room with your child, teaching them, remains the most powerful thing a school can offer. If it is our responsibility to present the best quality education to our students and their families, then it is also our responsibility to maximise the hours in which that education is actually being delivered.

What a full day would give our students

Years 11 and 12 would gain additional time in every subject they study. More time in each course means content covered thoroughly rather than rushed, more practice under a teacher's guidance, more opportunities for feedback, and more room for students to engage deeply with the work. For students carrying the demands of the HSC, that time gives them the best chance of excellence in their learning.

Years 9 and 10 would gain an elective and some additional time in subjects where students were missing. The late-start arrangement meant we opted out of an additional elective that students would traditionally study. Restoring the full day returns that subject to the pattern of study, giving students a further opportunity to pursue what genuinely interests them and to build a clear progression of skills across a continuum of learning from Year 7 to Year 12. Elective choice in Stage 5 can build the foundation for what students can take on in Stage 6, and a broader base at this point widens the pathways available to them later.

Our decision

Having considered the data, the feedback from our community, and the weight of the research, St Luke's will be moving to a full on-site school day for our senior students.

Current Year 11 students will be required to be on site for the entire school day from the first day of Term 4 in 2026.  This is the start of the HSC and it is important that this is done now in the interest of these students and their HSC results. 

Years 9, 10 and 11 will do the same from the first day of the 2027 school year.

In practical terms, Years 9 to 12 will begin at 8.30 every day, in line with the rest of the College. Rolls will be marked at the start of each day, and lateness will be followed up directly with families. 

I recognise this changes routines that some families have built around, and the additional time being desired by students and a small group of families. If the timing creates a genuine difficulty for your family, please contact us so that we can work through it with you. For students who have a genuine need, we will always seek to support adjustments that can be put in place outside of traditional learning. 

It is our responsibility to ensure that we are presenting the best quality education and value for our students and their families, and this decision has been made with that responsibility firmly in mind. Our students have one opportunity at these years, and we intend to give them every minute of it.