School attendance is compulsory and schools in SA expect their students to be in class around 200 days a year.

On average, Woodend PS students attendance for 2023 is 91% which is just short of our goal of 95%. While the vast majority of our students attend school regularly, we have approximately 15 students who average only 4 days per week attendance. There is also a small number of students who are late for school approximately 50% of the days they attend.

There is no safe threshold to missing school

Research has investigated how many days of absence kids could ‘get away with’ before it started to affect how they were doing at school. The answer was none. A poor start with school attendance in Reception has been shown to carry on and attendance declines further into high school.

Achievement increases with consistent school attendance and every day counts.

The effect of one day of absence a year is relatively small but the impact adds up quickly as more and more days are missed. The effect of missing days accumulates over time, so that school absence not only impacts achievement in the year in which the days are missed but has an impact on achievement throughout a child’s school life.

Congratulations to our families who are consistent with attendance!