Attendance

Students miss school for a whole range of different reasons, such as illness, suspension, or family holidays. Today, we’ll be speaking with Kirsten Hancock, Honorary Research Associate from Telethon Kids Institute in Western Australia about how different types of absences affect student outcomes, and what families and schools can do to tailor their support to students who are missing school.

Back in 2018, we brought you the story of a new intervention program for disengaged male students at Cherrybrook Technology High School in New South Wales. Nearly four years later, in today’s article, we hear how the program has evolved over the years and the impact it’s had on student learning and wellbeing.

The FlexiSpace initiative in Queensland is aimed at reconnecting disengaged students and supporting them to stay at school. Evaluations of the pilot and first phase of expansion provide early evidence of their effectiveness. Peter Kelly, Deputy Director-General at Queensland Department of Education, shares details of the approach, and the impact it’s having in participating schools.

Australia’s annual Closing the Gap Report communicates progress towards government targets for Indigenous Australians in areas like education, health and employment. In this infographic, we take a look at results detailed in the 2020 report related to education targets.

Mental disorders are a significant cause of absence, particularly in high school, a new examination of data from the Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing shows. Today’s infographic looks at some of the results across Years 1-12.

Issues with school attendance at South Coast Baptist College are followed up early and consistently by teachers at the West Australian school. This all forms part of their school-wide approach to wellbeing.

Mental health disorders are a significant cause of student absence from school, particularly in the secondary school years, according to a new study published in the Australian Journal of Education.

A workplace placement program targeting Indigenous senior secondary students has helped improve school engagement and attendance. In this article, we look at a school which has all of their senior Indigenous students enrolled and how it’s having a positive effect school-wide.

Can therapy dogs decrease anxiety and stress in students, and improve school attendance? These are just some of the questions Monash University academics Dr Linda Henderson and Dr Christine Grove from the Faculty of Education are trying to answer as they push for more research in this area.

Emeritus Professor Bill Louden from the University of Western Australia presented at Research Conference 2018 in Sydney. His session, titled Evidence-based approaches to school improvement: Kimberley Schools Project outlined the fundamental principles that underpin the thinking behind the project.