Student Attendance

Attendance Rolls

This year, as with every year, we are expecting all attendance rolls to be completed by 10am. With some prompting, we have already seen considerable improvement. We have received a few queries regarding our protocols in this space. Please be clear on these:

• classrooms teachers are preferred to upload their classroom attendance data on Cases 21 between 9-10am daily

• in cases where specialists or non JSA CRTs are overseeing classrooms, the classroom team are expected to call Julie or Kay in the office to confirm attendance

Please note that all teaching teams (in any classroom) must appreciate that taking classroom attendance is the first step in meeting our ongoing Duty of Care. We will not be expecting Julie and Kay to call you from now on; this standard, routine practice needs to built in.

Extended Absence Requests

At the end of last term, we revised our JSA Attendance Policy in line with the DE's template on their Policy Advisory Library (otherwise called PAL).

As part of this policy, we formalise parent/carer requests for students seeking approval for Extended Absence of 5 or more days (previously 3 days or more).

If any parents express interest or intentions for their child to be away for 5 or more days, please provide them with a copy of our new form, as below:

A copy of this form is also saved on SharePoint (School Docs/All Blank Proformas). Please shred any other hard copy versions or delete digital versions to provide for consistency from this term.

We will be promoting this new form and our JSA processes with families this week. Please keep an eye out.

Recording attendance

Jacana School for Autism must record student attendance twice per day. This is necessary to:

• meet legislative requirements

• discharge Jacana School for Autism duty of care for all students

Recording absences

For absences where there is no exemption in place, a parent must provide an explanation on each occasion to the school. 

Parents should notify Jacana School for Autism of absences by:

• texting the STUDENT ABSENCE mobile 0439 114 197, informing the name of the student, room number and reason for absence. 

If Jacana School for Autism considers that the parent has provided a reasonable excuse for their child’s absence the absence will be marked as ‘authorised absence’. 

If the school determines that no reasonable excuse has been provided, the absence will be marked as ‘unauthorised absence’. 

Monitoring Unexplained Absences

Please ensure to follow the student absence flowchart, when monitoring unexplained absences.