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Attendance Procedures

Hobsonville Point Primary School has procedures to record and monitor attendance, and to identify and follow up concerns.  We communicate attendance expectations with students and parents/caregivers regularly. 

 

Attendance is recorded accurately to ensure all students are accounted for, including for emergency situations. We submit daily attendance data to the Ministry of Education, as required by the Education and Training Act 2020 and Education (School Attendance) Regulations 2024. We monitor absence patterns using our student management system HERO and notify parents/caregivers of any concerns.

 

Absences

Reporting Absence 

Parents are required to report any absences through our student management system HERO as soon as possible.   This includes any students who are running late or will be leaving early for an appointment.

 

School Follow-up on absence 

The Hobsonville Point Primary administration team, responsible for day-to-day attendance will follow up on unreported absences as follows:

• An absentee message will be sent out to parents by 10am if we have not received a HERO absences notification.

• This message may be resent whilst we await an update

• The school will code the young person’s absence as Truant (T- Unjustified) if no information is communicated.

 

Lateness and leaving early

All students who arrive late or are collected early must be signed in/out on the VISTAB at the main administration office and notify their teacher of their arrival/departure.  

 

School hours 

The school building opens at 8:30am for students to enter classrooms.

School begins at 9am 

There are 2 breaks for each age group - one short break for morning tea and a longer break for lunch.  Please see your common directly for break times as we run 2 different break timetables due to the construction on site.

School finishes at 3pm

 

Recording attendance 

 

All students are recorded as present or absent using set attendance codes specified by the Ministry of Education.  An absence may be justified (e.g for medical reasons) or unjustified (e.g an unapproved holiday trip or other reason that is unsatisfactory.  This is marked as such in our attendance register each day.  

 

Commonly used attendance codes at HPPS 

 

Justified Absence

Code

M - Illness / Medical e.g. Short term illness/medical reason 

J - Bereavement and/or Exceptional Family Circumstances 

(can be up to 5 days but must be approved by the Principal) 

J - Approved leave for non-school event 

eg. To participate in regional/national sports team or attend a cultural or religious event 

(can be up to 5 days but must be approved by the Principal)   

D - Medical/Dental Appointment

Q - School Trip/ Activity

 

 

Unjustified Absence

E - Explained but not approved   

G - Holiday during term time   

T - Truant   

 

Medical (Justified)

When a student is unable to attend school due to a short-term illness or medical reasons parents must notify the school each day of absence with information regarding the reason.  This will be recorded using the Medical code M  (Justified).  

If no explanation is received it will be marked T (Truant - Unjustified), 

If the absence continues beyond a reasonable recovery period it may be marked E (Explained and unjustified).  Please use this guidance to decide if your child is well enough to come to school. 

 

Bereavement and/or Exceptional Family Circumstances (Justified)

We understand that bereavement and exceptional family circumstances take time, and we ask that you keep us informed about any challenges your whānau may be facing.  Based on the information you provide, we can mark up to 5 days of absence as J (Justified), on a case-by-case basis. If the absence extends beyond 5 days, from the 6th day onwards, it will be recorded as E (Explained but not approved) 

 

Approved leave (Justified) 

The Principal may approve leave of up to 5 days for a student to participate in a regional or national sports team or to attend a religious or cultural event.  Approval must be requested by way of email to the principal at least 5 days prior with sufficient information.  Approved leave will be marked as J (Explained and approved) any further absence directly after the 5 days of leave will be marked as E (Explained but not approved)

 

Medical/ Dental appointment 

All appointments where possible should be scheduled outside of school hours, however, in the event that this is not possible please ensure accurate details are given when notifying and signing the student out so the absence can be coded correctly. If the justification does not meet the threshold for a justified absence (see below) then it will be marked as E- explained and unjustified. 

 

School Trip/ Activity 

All school organised trips and activities will be coded as Q - (Approved offsite learning).  Wherein the student may not be onsite but continues to engage in school learning activities e.g. school camps and school sports competitions.

 

Attendance Goals 

The Government target is for 80% of students to attend regularly, that is to attend school more than 90% of the time. 

 

In accordance with requirements from the Ministry of Education, we follow the Stepped Attendance Response.

 

Good Attendance 

Less than 5 days absence in a school term

 

Worrying Attendance 

Up to 10 days of absence in a school term 

 

Concerning Attendance 

Up to 15 days of absence in a school term 

 

Serious Concern Attendance 

15 days or more of absence in a school term.  

 

Classroom teachers and the administration team monitor patterns of absenteeism and will contact whānau to put in place support to improve attendance.  If absences continue students will be referred to our Learning Support Coordinator, Administration team, and/or Senior Leadership team to engage the next level of support and interventions to improve attendance.