From the Assistant Principal.
Dear Families,
ATTENDANCE
Attending school regularly is essential to a student's education and development. Even the best educational programs and teachers will not improve a student's education unless they are in school to benefit from them.
Most students will miss a few days of school each year due to illness or unforeseen circumstances. These absences are usually unavoidable and justified.
Unjustified absences (also referred to as unexplained or unauthorised absences) occur when parents or carers fail to adequately explain to the school why their child was absent. These absences are influenced by a combination of family, school, and individual student factors.
Regardless of whether the absence is justified or not, frequent absences can negatively affect a student's education. Students who miss one day of school per fortnight, miss four weeks of school per year, and the equivalent of an entire year of school in their lifetime.
Describing Attendance | |||
| Percentage | A fortnightly pattern such as… | A term pattern such as… | Could be described as… |
| 95 % + | A rare day away | 2 or less days away | Excellent Attendance |
| 90 % - 95 % | ½ - 1 day away | 3 - 5 days away | Regular Attendance |
| 80 % - 89 % | 1-2 days away | 5 - 10 days away | Emerging Attendance Concern |
| 70 % - 79 % | 2-3 days away | 10 - 15 days away | Significant Attendance Concern |
| < 70 % | More than 3 days away | 15 + days away | Critical / Complex Attendance Concern |
STRESS
What is stress? How do we manage stress? How do we teach our children to manage stress?
Recently I came upon this clip that one of our senior classes were using to help students understand stress and how the reactions we have to stress can determine our response. The first part of the clip says that we all need a little bit of stress in our lives to perform. At school we equate this to learning stamina. If a child says, 'I can't do this' every day then they would never learn. Flipping the narrative to 'I can't do this, yet' allows the student to see that, while they are having difficulty achieving a learning goal at the moment, there will be a time, where they will be able to do it.
Everyone deals with stress differently. Everyone feels stress differently.
And that is ok!
I hope you might find this clip useful and one that you might be able to watch and discuss with your child.
Have a great week,
Jim Heelis
Assistant Principal