EVERY DAY COUNTS: MANAGING STUDENT ATTENDANCE IN WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Background
Regular attendance at school is important for a student to learn. A child’s academic achievement is at risk if they regularly miss more than half a day of school a week. Poor educational outcomes affect work skills and the ability to participate in the workforce.
Parents have primary responsibility for ensuring their child goes to school and may be prosecuted for failing to enrol a child in an educational program or for non-attendance without a valid reason.
Schools have a responsibility for dealing with non-attendance, supported in difficult cases by the Department of Education and Training’s (DET) district offices and Central Office.
We looked at the level of attendance in Western Australian public schools, especially for those students whose attendance puts them at educational risk. We focused on DET’s policies and strategies and how these are actioned by district offices in helping schools manage non-attendance. We also looked at DET’s systems to measure, monitor and trigger action on nonattendance.
Examination conclusion…
Of the more than 177 000 students in Years 1 to 10 in WA’s public schools in 2008, almost 49 000 (28 per cent) are at educational risk because they are not attending school regularly. DET does not have a timely and comprehensive understanding of attendance in schools and has not been successful in addressing the growing number of students that do not attend school regularly.
What the examination found...
- School attendance is steadily declining. Between 2000 and 2008 average attendance in primary schools fell from 94.5 per cent to 92.6 per cent and from 90.7 per cent to 88.0 per cent in secondary schools.
- Almost three quarters of public students attend school regularly (over 90 per cent of the time). But the number of students at educational risk due to poor attendance rose 6 per cent in 2008 to nearly 49 000.
- Poor school attendance is a significant problem among both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students:
- The greatest numbers of students at educational risk due to poor attendance are non-Indigenous children in metropolitan schools.
- A high proportion of Indigenous students have low levels of attendance, making them over twice as likely to be at educational risk. Achieving adequate levels of education is one of the key contributors to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage.
- Attendance drops significantly as students progress through secondary school so that by Year 10 only 53 per cent of students attend regularly.
- DET has a strategy and policy to manage attendance and its approach works for students who are occasionally absent but not for those who are persistently absent. Few schools have improved attendance over the past three years.
- DET’s attendance policy and strategies are not based on a good understanding of the major causes for why students do not go to school. Unless strategies address the causes, school attendance will not improve.
- Schools and districts do not have clear guidance on how and when to respond to poor attendance so they may not provide the right response at the right time.
- DET rarely uses its last resort options of attendance panels and prosecutions.
- Successful strategies developed by schools or districts are not captured and replicated, so DET does not know which interventions are effective and could be used more widely.
What the examination recommended...
The Department of Education and Training should:
- publicise and promote the importance of regular school attendance to parents, students and the community
- develop a better understanding of the causes of non-attendance and the student groups they affect most
- review its current attendance strategy to: ensure greater consistency in when and how schools and districts respond to non-attendance; improve guidance on the types of interventions; and provide evidence based interventions that reflect the diff erent student cohorts
- improve the use of attendance as a key indicator of educational risk
- improve the processes for dealing formally with parents and students for persistent failure to attend school
- ensure that a timely and comprehensive view of attendance data and issues is available to schools, districts and Central Office staff
- ensure that schools are implementing the attendance strategy and policy and are responding appropriately and consistently to low attendance
- set and regularly monitor targets for student attendance, including an overall state target
- evaluate and review interventions addressing attendance, to identify and replicate good practice.
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