School attendance has been a leading news topic stretching back to last year. It came to prominence in the wake of Covid-19 lockdowns but has been on principals’ radars as far back as 2015.
Principals did not need to be told by the most recent research, that around 40 per cent of parents are comfortable for their child to miss school more than a week per term. They have been confronted by parents, at one end of the social spectrum, wishing to take their children on overseas or local holidays outside of the official school holiday period, for years. These parents will argue that a family holiday is as educational as attending school. Principals are also aware that as poverty has grown across Aotearoa New Zealand, so too have parent condoned absences at the other end of the social spectrum. As more parents have fallen into despair and dysfunction trying to manage and feed families, older siblings have been required to supervise younger siblings at home and in some cases, take on employment to help boost the family’s income. A further factor feeding the growing school absenteeism is housing. Successive governments have monumentally failed to provide sufficient social housing to give struggling families the dignity of a stable roof over their heads. Too many young people have no such basic security and are moving from one motel block to another, or from one temporary rental to another – often changing towns in the process.
Covid-19 may have brought this issue into focus, but sliding attendance rates are not news for schools.
The causes of non-attendance are complex and varied and principals will report that there has always been a hard core of chronic absenteeism of around 4–5 per cent. The absence of these young people has always concerned schools. Over the years principals have tried multiple, innovative ways to encourage these young people back to school, with mixed results. What has always been apparent, however, is that schools are more likely to be successful when the intermediary already has a trusted relationship with the community and with the family. In some cases, this has been someone from the school or the local community constable, or a highly respected local agency. It is unlikely however that a stranger would succeed in changing truant behaviour.
Schools have invested thousands of hours examining their own school programmes, asking questions like: Is our teaching and learning relevant to young people today? Are we providing sufficient experiences for learners to draw on so they can make the most of their subject learning? If students are not ready to begin formal learning when they arrive at school, how can school prepare them for formal learning through alternative programmes such as structured play?
Both schools and the Ministry have worked together on reducing bullying in schools, which was seen as another deterrent to attending school. All schools have a set of agreed bullying guidelines to follow and generally have a zero tolerance for any kind of bullying. Schools cannot influence what happens outside the school gate or on social media platforms but bullying in school is most certainly not acceptable to any school.
For many years schools have engaged attendance services, funded by the Ministry. Localised services were always more successful and when the service was centralised by the Ministry, results declined. That said, the problem persists and beyond Covid-19 has come to a head, such that areas like Te Tai Tokerau were recording as few as 39 per cent of young people attending school. Te Tai Tokerau schools invented a unique, local solution which was to create a social media platform for children to encourage their own friends back to school. The positivity of the media, all driven by the children, has brought unprecedented success with over 80 per cent of children now attending school in Te Tai Tokerau. It may also have involved an ice-cream or two, but once back at school, children quickly realised there was more to attending school than just learning to read, write and do mathematics. There were friends to play with, fun activities to be engaged in, sport and games to play, meals to share, and laughter to be had. They wanted to stay there, with their friends.
It is great that the Minister Hon Jan Tinetti has recently pumped another $74million into lifting attendance levels, which she calculates will support another 3,000 young people to get back to school. She has also set targets to lift attendance rates to 70 per cent by 2024. Judging on what works, the Minister would be best advised to give her $74million to the schools and allow them, like Te Tai Tokerau, to invent their own unique solutions that work best for them. At the same time, she might nudge her Ministerial colleagues in housing to get a few more social housing blocks built and ask the Minister for children and poverty to be brave and courageous, to find their moral compass and lift our families drowning in poverty out of the misery that strangles them.
There will always be the hard core to work on, but this way, the vast majority can once again embrace schooling, restart their learning and appreciate the fun of reconnecting with their mates.