Refreshed health guidance for parents and schools

By Education Gazette editors

Issue: Volume 103, Number 6

Posted: 15 May 2024

Reference #: 1HAgXb

Schools, parents, and caregivers all have a key role in lifting school attendance.

School attendance is vital to learning success.

Children learn better when they experience uninterrupted learning which is vital to give them the best chance of learning success.

In recent years, consistently across all terms, absence due to short-term illness/medical reasons were the largest contributors to justified absences and remain higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Education has worked with health agencies to update public health guidance to emphasise the importance of school attendance.

Refreshed health guidance from Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora is now available for parents and schools to help decide when a learner is well enough to attend school, when they should stay home sick, and when to seek further health advice. The guidance includes information about a wide range of symptoms as well as information about helpful supports for students who experience mild anxiety.

The Government has set a target of 80 percent of students attending regularly by 2030.

In term 4 2023, 53.6 percent of students met the criteria for regular attendance, an increase of 3.5 percentage points from the 50.1 percent in term 4 2022.

The regular attendance rate for term 4 2023 is 12.5 percentage points lower than 2019 (66.1 percent), the year preceding Covid-19 and the first-time regular attendance was reported for term 4.

The refreshed guidance supports schools and parents to have educationally powerful conversations about the importance of school attendance and contributes to community awareness about the value of regular attendance for improved educational and life outcomes.

The Ministry encourages schools to share links to the guidance on their websites and in their school newsletters.