Attendance Policy

Ratified July 2008

Rationale

Students of school age (6 to 15 years) resident in Victoria are required to be in full-time attendance at a government or registered non-government school unless they are receiving approved home tuition, have a shared enrolment with a specialist setting, have received exemption from the Regional Director or are enrolled in correspondence education.

Aims

To maximise learning opportunities by ensuring student absenteeism is kept to a minimum.
To put into place agreed processes for managing student absences within the school.
To create a parent culture that views regular school attendance and communicating student absences to the school as important.

Implementation

All staff will take responsibility for student attendance All staff will have high attendance expectations and role model desired behaviours
All enrolled students are expected to attend school regularly.
Teachers mark the attendance roll at 9:00 am and 2.00 pm each day.
Attendance and absence records form part of each student’s half-year and end-of-year progress reports to parents.
Parents of absent students are required to provide a written note detailing the reason/s for their child’s absence. These notes are collected by class teachers and kept in the class attendance roll book.
Staff members bring to the attention of the wellbeing coordinator any student whose attendance is irregular, who does not provide written notes adequately explaining absences, or whose absences appear unwarranted.

Responsibilities

Students will

attend school regularly.
supply class teachers with a note from a parent explaining each absence.

Parents will:

ensure that his/her child is in school every school day unless there is a legitimate reason for the child’s absence (illness)
provide an explanation for student absence

Class teacher will:

accurately mark rolls twice daily
follow up on consistent lateness
monitor student absences in the class.
insist that students bring a letter of explanation for absences
contact the parents or inform the assistant principal if an absence remains unexplained for more than 3 days.
re-enforce the message of “It’s not OK to be Away” in the class
use the Student Absence Summary Report provided twice a term to alert students and their parents where attendance

Office staff will:

generate and maintain class rolls.
accurately input daily absences into Cases.
monitor student attendance data.

The Wellbeing Coordinator will:

assist teachers to follow up attendance of those students identified as having unsatisfactory attendance.
provide class teachers with the Absence Summary Report twice a term
place regular articles in the newsletter
conduct a survey with parents, teachers and students
monitor student absences on a weekly basis.

Evaluation

The policy will be reviewed as part of the school’s three-year review.