You will receive an email this week indicating your student’s attendance for this term. The government has emphasised that attendance is crucial for achievement and I agree with the strong messaging around this.
I have been saying the same for many years as I have looked at data that shows the link between attendance and achievement.
Consider the following data related to NCEA achievement at level 2 and level 3 for our 2024 year 12 and year 13 cohorts.
Attendance v Achievement – NCEA 2024
| Year level | Qual | Attendance | # achieved | Total | Achievement % |
| 12 | NCEA L2 | 90%+ | 87 | 96 | 90.6 |
| 80-89% | 97 | 119 | 81.5 | ||
| <80% | 68 | 127 | 53.5 | ||
| 13 | NCEA L3 | 90+% | 33 | 38 | 86.8 |
| 80-89% | 89 | 101 | 88.1 | ||
| <80% | 84 | 151 | 55.6 |
The results for students with attendance greater than 80% are substantially better than those with attendance below 80%. This is a pattern repeated year after year. Note that these statistics include all students in year 12 and year 13 last year who were on the school roll for more than 70 calendar days. This means that the 90%+ group at year 12 includes nine students who didn’t get the level 2 qualification, but eight of these students were not trying to get level 2. Five of them were former refugee students who were enrolled at school to learn English language, one student left half way during the year (to go overseas), and two students were ORS funded students (high needs students). Of the students who attended for more than 90% of the time who were striving to achieve level 2 NCEA last year, all but one of them managed this.
You can also see that only 53.5% of those students with attendance below 80% achieved the qualification – 46 students out of the 68 that achieved with attendance below 80% had attendance above 70%.
In year 13 last year, our best achievement was by students with attendance above 80% but our largest number of students in year 13 last year had attendance less than 80%.
The number 80% is an interesting one. Any student below 80% attendance is missing the equivalent of one day of school per week. Given the data above, that is clearly not good enough! The Government’s target for schools is 80% of the students attending school for 90% of the time (by 2030). In 2023, only 46% of students nationwide were attending school regularly (over 90% of the time).
Our intention is that when you receive your student’s attendance figure for the term, you will talk to them about their attendance and you will set targets to improve where necessary. We understand that the reasons for non-attendance at school can be very complex but it is important that we are having a regular conversation if your student is struggling to get to school.
If students are away regularly, for whatever reason, it is very difficult for them to have continuity in their academic programmes and they struggle to engage when they are at school because they haven’t been there for previous learning. Although in some cases there are earnest attempts (and some very successful) to keep up with work through engagement with the relevant Google Classroom at home, it is not the same as being in the class and having access to their peers and teacher-experts when problems arise.
Another message that you will have received and that I deliver to students regularly is the importance of connection – connection with students, staff and whānau. I have written previously that students who are involved in sports, cultural activities and clubs attend better than those who don’t participate in these activities. Last year, 1403 (78.2%) of our students participated in a sport, a club or a cultural activity whilst 391 (21.8%) of our students did not. The group that did participate in these activities had an average attendance 15 percentage points higher than those students who did not participate in any other activities.
I think the reasons for this are fairly obvious – the personal, social connections strengthen the school connection. We encourage our students to find a way, apart from the classroom, to get involved with school because we know that it makes a difference to their wellbeing and that is part of the attendance ‘problem’ solved.
I hope you are able to spend quality time as a family together during this term one break and we look forward to seeing everyone back, well-refreshed and recharged on Monday 28 April.
Dominic Killalea
Principal