A senior Government minister has called into an east Auckland school to emphasise the importance of ensuring pupils are attending class.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour met with teaches and pupils at Owairoa Primary School in Howick just before the recent term-break holidays.
He spoke with members of the school’s senior management team to talk about student attendance.
Seymour then toured several of its classrooms, spoke to pupils and heard about life around the school’s campus.
“His visit was a great opportunity for both staff and students to learn more about the Government’s focus on improving school attendance,” the school says.
“At interval time, Minister Seymour addressed our staff, emphasising the Government’s goal of having 80 per cent of students attend school for more than 90 per cent of each term by 2030.
“To achieve this, schools need to aspire to reach an average daily attendance rate above 94 per cent, he said.
“This year, the Government introduced daily attendance reporting … which Seymour highlighted as a valuable tool.
“High-quality attendance data is helping students, parents, and school communities identify absence, talk about the importance of school attendance, and measure positive change over time.”
Seymour recently said school attendance improvements over the first two weeks of term three show that when the Government takes education seriously, so do New Zealanders.
“Almost every aspect of someone’s adult life will be defined by the education they receive as a child.
“If we want better social outcomes, we need more students attending school and a curriculum that delivers.
“It’s been a promising start to term three with attendance up from the last two weeks of term two, with an overall attendance rate of 83.9 per cent.
“Attendance on Fridays remains a particular problem, being frequently lower than any other day of the week.
“I encourage parents to think of the long-term impact of letting students skip Fridays, both in missed education and in setting good habits for future employment.”
High-quality attendance data is helping students, parents, and school communities identify absence, talk about the importance of school attendance, and measure positive change over time, Seymour says.
“The Government’s Attendance Action Plan will continue to be rolled out throughout 2024, with announcements about a traffic-light system later in the year.
“If the truancy crisis isn’t addressed there will be an 80-year long shadow of people who missed out on education when they were young, are less able to work, less able to participate in society, more likely to be on benefits. That’s how serious this is.”
