September 8, 2025 • 35 mins
Student attendance has become one of the big challenges facing New Zealand schools. With new Attendance Management Plans becoming mandatory from 2026 and expanded attendance services on the horizon, principals are under increasing pressure to find effective solutions to chronic absenteeism. But some schools are beating the odds. In this episode, we sit down with principals who have successfully turned around poor attendance in their schools.
Hosted by Eleisha McNeill.
My guests are:
- Mandy Dodds, tumuaki of Kumara School on the West Coast
- Chris Bean, principal of Tangaroa College in Otara, Auckland
- James Christie, tumuaki of Mauku School in the Franklin district
This podcast was produced for the Ministry of Education.
You can learn more by accessing the e-learning modules for principals on the Education LMS: https://training.education.govt.nz
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eleisha (00:08):
Kia ora and welcome to The Principals, a podcast series
for aspiring and current tumuakiin Aotearoa New Zealand. I'm
Eleisha McNeill. Studentattendance has become one of the
big challenges facing NewZealand schools. With new
attendance management plansbecoming mandatory from 2026 and
expanded attendance services onthe horizon, principals are
(00:31):
under increasing pressure tofind effective solutions to
chronic absenteeism. But someschools are beating the odds,
and in this episode I'm speakingwith three principals who have
successfully turned around poorattendance in their schools. You
might want a pen and paper forthis episode, there are some
great tips in here. Let's startoff with some introductions.
Chris (00:51):
Sure, kia ora koutou katoa, ko Chris Bean tōku ingoa,
ko tumuaki aho ki Te Kura oTangaroa, so I'm principal for
Tangaroa College. We're based inthe heart of Ōtara, South
Auckland, and we have a schoolpopulation of around just over a
thousand students. We have avery strong, passionate
community who love theopportunity of coming to school
(01:13):
and the learning that's providedto them. And we are heavily
Pasifika and Māori with a nicepopulation of Filipino whānau
that are now coming into thespace and with a wonderful
community around us.
Eleisha (01:29):
Great. Thank you. Mandy.
Mandy (01:31):
Kia ora koutou, I'm Mandy Dodds, I'm the principal of
Kūmara School on the West Coastof the South Island. We have 40
students at our school mostlyfrom farms, so mostly farm
owners and farm workers. Most ofthe parents love school and want
their kids to attend regularly.So, just good, hardworking
(01:53):
people, really
Eleisha (01:55):
Cool. Thank you. James.
James (01:58):
Kia ora, ko James Christie tōku ingoa, nō
Pukekohe ahau. I'm the tumuakiat Mauku Primary School, which
is a little rural primary schoolof 160-odd children about 10
minutes from Pukekohe. So ourschool is made up of farmers
from the area and lifestyleblockers. So we have in the old
numbers, decile 10 families andthen we also have a bus that
(02:20):
comes out from a lowersocio-economic area of Pukekohe
which would come with what youwould classically call your
decile one range of students. Wehave a wonderful school and I
love the job.
Eleisha (02:31):
Excellent. So obviously we're here today to talk about
attendance. So I wanted to startby asking each of you what the
attendance situation was likewhen you first started in your
kura. Maybe Chris start with you.
Chris (02:47):
Yep, I came into this kura 2023. So when I came into
this space, you know, theattendance was okay, but there
were still gaps in the regularattendance, I guess, across the
board and that was the, thelearning I was taking away from
what was occurring within thiscommunity. So, I really just
wanted to make sure that I couldunderstand better why we had
(03:08):
sort of a lower turnout notacross the board in everything,
but just in certain spaces. Andobviously with that loss of time
in the school, meant a loss oflearning time in the classroom.
So, uh, that was what I wastrying to address and trying to
correct once we startedrecognising uh, where our issues
were.
Eleisha (03:25):
And what were those issues?
Chris (03:27):
I suppose when I walked into this space, we'd just come
out of COVID and in that time,obviously, there was a lot of
disengagement around thelearning for our young ones.
Eleisha (03:35):
Yeah.
Chris (03:36):
Uh, we too also are in a transient community so uh, there
was a lot of shifting and movingas result of all those sort of,
um, factors that were playing apart and, it was really just
trying to get back into normalroutines, and I know it sounds
simple to say coming to schoolshould be straightforward, but
for many in our space, it was abit of a struggle. And I was
just trying to go back to wherewe were, I was saying how
(03:58):
important it was to be at schooland what being at school then
meant and tried to show thecorrelation between the learning
in the classroom and successmoving forward. So there was
that to compile around it. Andthen we also found that some of
our students were also engagedin work during that COVID window
and also continued to workbecause for some, it was a
(04:19):
supplementary income for thefamily. For some, they may have
been only income earner from ajob perspective, so they picked
up a lot of part-time work. AndI guess what was important was
trying to understand what thatlooked like for them and how we
could also make school alearning success in a space that
they could still attend, butbalance out around that other
(04:40):
important factor where they weresupplying and supporting family
from a financial perspective.
Eleisha (04:45):
Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough challenge.
Chris (04:47):
It's a very tough challenge and, you know, you can
look at it in black and whiteand say, "Okay, that makes
sense." But when you really hearthe story of why they need to
work and all that, that goeswith it, then yeah, there's a
bit more understanding aroundwhat we need to do then to sort
of compensate that sort of timeaway. We also find that a lot of
our young people have to remainhome to look after the younger
(05:08):
ones
Eleisha (05:08):
Hmm.
Chris (05:08):
or even the older ones in the family. So we heavily are
Pasifika and Māori, so that isa key element of their care for
each other. So it was balancingthat out, and then also when
family events take place thattake priority sometimes in a
family's mind, that means thatwe also saw disengagement from
teaching and learning andattendance as a result. So it
was trying to factor in allthose different concerns and how
(05:31):
to understand that then how towork our way around that I guess.
Eleisha (05:35):
Definitely. Yeah. It certainly sounds like a really a
really massive challenge. Mandy,what about what about you in
Kūmara, what was it like there?
Mandy (05:44):
So, I started here pre-covid, 2018, and attendance
was pretty good. We've alwaysgot a few outliers but it's
pretty good. After COVID, it wasabout reengaging and that for
some is still quite difficultand I'm lead of our Kāhui Āko
down here as well that works inthe Greymouth area of the West
(06:06):
Coast. And we found as acollective that after COVID,
that whole thing about beingabsent because you're ill has
been a real issue - how ill isill enough to be at home, how
sick is it OK to come to school?Because it is OK to come to
school if you've got a bit of asore throat or a bit of a runny
(06:26):
nose or a wee bit of a headache,but any whiff of anything,
people are still staying at homeand some using it as an excuse
to stay at home and not come toschool. So we're, as a Kāhui
Āko working in the health spaceas well with some health
professionals to try and draftup some info that we can send
out to parents that they can puton their fridge and use that
(06:49):
information. The other thingthat we've done is much the same.
Everybody's got a story. And ifthey're absent a lot of the time,
it isn't just about the beingabsent, it's about the story
that goes behind that or withthat, and trying to work with
parents, caregivers, whānau,the children to work out how we
(07:10):
can address those issues, if wecan address those issues. Some
of the things we've been reallysuccessful with is supplying
uniform, supplying food,applying school products like
bags and pens, pencils, any gearthat they need for school that
we've done that through theKāhui. Also getting kids to
(07:31):
school, providing transport,simple things like, one of the
girls I've got here just wascompletely disengaged, because
she's a year eight, and whowants to come to school when,
you know, you could be at homedoing whatever. So she works in
the morning on her basicschoolwork, in the afternoon,
she's got some choice thingsthat she can do. She's really
(07:53):
into art, so we've got her someart supplies and that's gone
into well I can write about myart. So she's still doing all
the schoolwork, but she'sgetting the other stuff as well
and her attendance has gone fromless than, she was in the red
zone. She's up in orange now, soshe's doing pretty good, she'
(08:13):
getting there, she's doingreally well. Another boy, he was
disengaged and we sent him downto one of our, our cleaner's
partner is a mechanic and he'sretired. So this young man goes
down to his place and pullsmotors apart once a week, if
he's been at school all week,and if he's done his work. So
(08:36):
and that's worked really well,that's really successful.
Eleisha (08:39):
those creative solutions.
Mandy (08:40):
Just a few little things but yeah, seemed to work. It's
thinking out of the box a littlebit I think.
Eleisha (08:47):
Yes, sounds like really great solutions to a big problem.
James (08:50):
Um,
Eleisha (08:51):
James.
James (08:52):
I've been at Mauku for I think 10 years, but in the
swivel chair for a year and abit. So like Chris and Mandy
have said, the COVID thing like,although we're well out of that
it's had a lot of lingering kindof impacts and people being a
bit nervous about, yeah, ifthey've got a sniffle going to
school. So Mauku's a funnylittle school because we're
rural but we're sort of 10minutes from Pukekohe, so
(09:14):
there's a township but we're inpaddock. So there's only about
half a dozen houses around us.There's one child that walks to
school. The rest are eitherfarming or lifestyle kind of
block people around us. Or theycome from Pukekohe on a bus from
a lower social economic part ofPukekohe. So there's different
reasons. So some of the reasonsfor not being here is because
(09:35):
we're going on a family trip toAustralia and we're going in the
term time because the flightsare cheaper. And at the same
time, someone's not coming toschool because they couldn't get
up in time to make the busbecause they have to wake
themselves up because Mum andDad are already at work sort of
thing. So lots of differentlittle kind of reasons. T unique
to us but they're just a bit allover the show.
Eleisha (09:55):
Yeah. So you've talked about some of the causes of less
than perfect attendance for alot of the students. How did you
begin to understand the reasonswhy kids weren't coming to
school when you first started,ehm, Chris?
Chris (10:10):
When I walked into this role, I thought it was important
for me just to step back andjust digest what this whole
environment looked like. Sothere's no point in rushing in
and coming in with your ownideas around what could possibly
facilitate change, but if youdon't know what's sort of there
in front of you. So it wasimportant just to sit back, but
it was also important to sitwith those too in the SLT space,
(10:30):
our deans, our teachers, throughmembers of our board just to
understand what this environmentreally looked like. And so it
didn't take long to recognizewhat I raised earlier were those
key factors um around whyattendance was low for some. We
still had good uptake by manystudents and many families, but
there was obviously a pocketstill not engaging to the point
(10:51):
where we where we felt contentthat we could have them in our
school space and we could movetowards success. But I think
once you know what that issuelooks like for you or those
issues look like for you, thenyou can really personalize your
approach. And each school'sdifferent, of course, and you
just try and target where youneed to and chew off the bits
that you can chew and getsuccess with, rather than trying
(11:14):
for for too many things to justsolve one initiative.
Eleisha (11:18):
Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, a, a huge raft of
differences for the kids and thereasons that they weren't
attending school. What are the,what are some of the solutions
that you came up with to helpthem get to school more often?
Chris (11:33):
One key initiative was working along our SLT, our Deans,
our staff, and tried to solvethe problem as a collective.
Many times when you end up inthis principal space, you're
meant to be solution for many,many things that go around in
our circle. So it was justdrawing on those that had those
strengths as well andunderstanding so we could be
(11:54):
stronger as one, I guess, whenwe tried to put solutions
together.
Eleisha (11:56):
Mm.
Chris (11:57):
And also working alongside the Ministry of
Education was very positive atthat time when I jumped into
this space. We had rapidresource funds available.
Eleisha (12:05):
Mm-hmm.
Chris (12:05):
And that allowed us to then put some money, funding
towards some thoughts that wethought could help us solve
those solutions aroundattendance. One of them was
employing our own employmentofficers we called that person
the truancy and engagementofficer and their role was very
much like an outside truancyperson. But because their role
(12:26):
covers too many schools, wealready had someone on site that
we could say here's our person,here's the family or the student
where we're struggling with toget some positive shift in. And
so with that rapid resource fund,we trialled for a term what that
could look like and it proved tobe a success, because we got
someone who was from thecommunity and understood the
(12:47):
community, and was a friendlyface to go knocking on the door
of our community. And that's thebig challenge, because it is not
easy going into someone else'sspace, their home, and then
asking questions around where isso and so, but it was a success.
So what it meant for me now wasseeing that success was that
we're at least engaging withfamilies, having a conversation,
(13:09):
having that understanding. Therewas no instant turn back the
following day to school, but itgave us an understanding of
where we were sitting with someof those issues that were
surrounding those families. Andtherefore it just gave a bit
more time then to find ways fromthe different individual
families of how we could applydifferent strategies to get them
back into our space. And then itallowed me to also then say to
(13:31):
ourselves, we needed to have asafety and security officer at
the front gate. Because at thattime too students were freely
moving in and out of the schoolduring those interval and lunch
times, and so having someone inthat space, the right person
once again, having the rightprocess in place now where you
must exit with a pass that'sbeen granted from the office,
(13:52):
it's just to tidy that up,because it just allowed the odd
student to slip out and in, butthat person would also have a
circle of influence around otherfriends who probably wouldn't do
those certain things and so theyjust sort of tagged along so it
closed that door a lot. And thenthe good thing is once we
started getting kids into school,that was fine, it was then now
getting them into class.
Eleisha (14:12):
Yeah.
Chris (14:13):
So it was it was shuffling them around. So then
we employed a student engagementofficer that we have operating
around the school during thoseinterval and period times,
who'll get the kids off to class,but also gets those who seem to
enjoy their time in the toilet alot longer than they should be.
And so it gets them out and intothe classroom space as well. So
(14:33):
it's trying to take initiativeslike that that you can build
capacity amongst your own staff,and may cost you from your
operations to fund such things,but it's well worth it, I've
found it's well worth it,because it's just has shown to
everyone that we value theirpresence, we value attendance,
and we do all we can to makesure if you're in our space,
(14:54):
you're in the classroom, you'relearning.
Eleisha (14:56):
Yeah. You mentioned there, just going back to
getting kids to school, youmentioned that you came up with
some strategies that you usedwith, with different families.
Can you give us some examples ofsome of those strategies?
Chris (15:09):
Well the first one was to make that we engage with them in
a way that allowed them not tofeel like we were putting
pressure on them.So theapproach was friendly, you know
initial phone call or emails, aswe find in this space too a lot
of the information we havearound phone numbers and email
addresses are not correct orhaven't been updated.
Eleisha (15:30):
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Chris (15:31):
So like I said, the person that we had knocking on
the door was someone who waspart of our community, and it
was key. So they understood thespace they were walking into, so
it was just that friendlyapproach without anything being
too heavy, so it was reallymaking sure that they understood
the conversation was more aroundunderstanding where they were at
so then we could find ways tobest support their young one
coming into our space or for thefamily to be aware we value the
(15:54):
young one being in space, someof the families we're engaging
with, they themselves have had apoor experience with school life
so it's just to reverse maybetheir experiences to try and
support their own young onescoming into our our setting.
Eleisha (16:08):
So just being kind of flexible and a little bit
creative in the way that youhandle that. And James, what
about you? What strategies haveyou used to try and improve
attendance in your kura?
James (16:19):
Do you know what? Really similar to what Chris has just
talked about. L to his collegeproblems, it reminds me of why I
maybe prefer primary school abit better or a bit more because
it's different. But it's thesame kind of basic I suppose,
things like it's making sure thechildren want to be in the
classrooms at school. I meanthat's the essence of it. There
was the same sort of stuff. It'sabout building those
(16:41):
relationships within thecommunity. Our school's got 160
children, so it's far easier toknow pretty much everybody and
you really, really do know thepeople that you need to well,
you know who they are, maybetrying to get in contact with
them and talk to them is nigh onimpossible but it tends to be a
smaller group and we'd go roundto their house and meet them and
have a conversation. Chrisalluded to it a little bit with
(17:03):
the, they might have interestingexperiences of school when they
were you know, going throughlife and that puts them
potentially with a negative lenslooking at school anyway and
they then don't feel sometimesas inclined I suppose to send
their children to school. I wasthinking about it before. They
do, there's a lot parentsempowering their children to
stay at home these days, there'sa story we had, it's an ex
(17:25):
student of ours but the mumworks here and she said, I just
had to bring my son into Maukutoday because he's not going to
the intermediate. He got his ziton his nose and he was quite
embarrassed about going in so wedecided it would be better that
he'd stay at home
Eleisha (17:36):
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well.
James (17:36):
and we're kind of like really like where's the best
place for your child right now.What, what could they learn out
of going to school with a zit,like there's going to be more
coming, they're only 11 or 12.So it's that kind of getting in
and having those conversationswith families about, you know,
like school's really important,and showing them what it looks
like on paper as well, whathaving a number of days off
looks like, relating that for alot of them, relating it to work,
(17:59):
saying, look if you're away thisoften from work how would that
look for you and they all, theanswer is it would not look good
like, you'd see you later jobbut we're lucky in Franklin, we
have the Franklin AttendanceService which is, as a small
school we have to, you know, wedon't get our own kind of person
but we buy into them, wellthey're funded for us and we use
them as our kind of middleman toget into their homes to have a
(18:22):
conversation, they'll turn upwith food parcels, they're
acting on behalf of the schoolbut they're not the school, so
it kind of it doesn't have that,I think for a parent it doesn't
have the fear of the school'scoming looking for me. It's just
a friendly kind of local that'sbringing us some food and they
want to have a chat about whyschool's difficult. And it
starts to begin to break downthose kind of barriers, and at
(18:42):
the end of the day, like I saidbefore it, it's making sure that
the children have a reason forbeing at school and if they want
to be at school they'll convincetheir parents to drop them off
at school, they'll remember towake up early for the bus.
Eleisha (18:53):
Yeah. What about, what about you, Mandy? Did you take a
similar approach, you know, youmentioned providing different
things to help encourage thekids into school, whether that
was um, food or, you know,school uniform, things like that.
Did you, also, you know, visitthe homes or have someone visit
the homes to, to talk to thefamilies? How did that work in
(19:15):
Kūmara?
Mandy (19:16):
We're part of the attendance service, that
services the whole of our KāhuiĀko. So yes, we've used the
attendance service to start that.I spend a lot of my time first
thing in the morning and at 3o'clock at the gate, having
Eleisha (19:31):
Yeah.
Mandy (19:31):
conversations with parents in cars,because school's
been a negative place for them,they won't come in to school and
so I spend a lot of time downout there talking to parents
through car windows, which hasbeen really successful. It's
making a connection and now onefather who would never engage at
all, he will now send me a textif his son's sick, that doesn't
(19:54):
sound much, but that's a hugestep forward in trust and
communication for us. So reallyit is about building
relationships and doing it fromus but also doing it from the
attendance service if needs tobe.
Eleisha (20:06):
Yeah, exac. Um, so what role did your staff play in
turning around the attendance,you know, obviously it needs to
be a school wide priority. Howdid you guys bring the staff
along, or is it something thatthey all understood and valued,
James?
James (20:23):
Yeah, no, or that I think they probably did value a little
bit and had some level ofunderstanding. But I think just
as of late, the numbers are alot more kind of upfront and
present. And there is alwaysbeen that kind of thing, like I
was a teacher once, not thatlong ago, if you have one or two
kids out of your class for theday, it makes teaching a class
(20:45):
that much easier. So there'sthat kind of just little thing
there that used to go on. But Ithink that for us, I think
that's quite it's gone now.Teachers on the flip side know
that if the children aren't thenit makes their job harder in the
long run with trying to get them
Eleisha (21:00):
Yeah.
James (21:01):
back on track with their learning. Funnily enough, a
generalisation, that thechildren with low attendance
often have low achievement aswell. And so we're trying to
move them anyway. They're notturning up to get moved forward,
like it's just a big neverending quite tough cycle.So ,
yeah, really when we kind ofcame up with a bit of a push
(21:21):
around it and the kind of littleinitiatives and the carrots that
we put out to the kids and allthat sort of stuff, we had to
get, like nothing works withoutthe teachers buy-in. It's really
easy from our chair. That wasone of the things being a new
principal that I learned quitequickly is you can have the
greatest idea in the world, butif you haven't thought it
through and don't have your teamon board, or at least most of
(21:42):
them, then it's just going todive bomb. So getting the
teachers on board was critical.Sharing with them the numbers,
talking about what that lookedlike, sharing about what we
would do from a seniorleadership kind of team and who
we work with. And they alsoworked out for themselves that
they had to make sure there's areason for the children to be in
(22:02):
their class.
Eleisha (22:03):
Mm. Mm. Yeah. Mm.
James (22:03):
Their class had to be great. Like, children aren't
actually at school for that muchof a year. I think we've only,
not long gone past the 100th dayof learning for the year you
know and we're well over halfway through the year. So making
sure that they're there, makingsure that the teachers know that
they have to be engaging andexciting every single day. They
have to turn up. We havefeelings on stuff going on, but
(22:25):
we have to park that sometimesand do our best for these kids
because they've only got thatone day in our class in that one
year or whatever it looks likefor us to make the difference.
So they have been crucial inmaking a difference.
Eleisha (22:37):
Yeah. You mentioned there carrots for the kids to,
you know, what, what kinds of,what kinds of things do you do
to encourage them?
James (22:45):
Yeah, so we do have some schemes, I suppose, to encourage
children to be at school. So wehave a school-wide kind of
reward system, and it's linkedtowards PB4L, but you will get
award points for all sorts ofthings, but having the correct
uniform is one, but also beingin class in the morning when the
teacher does the roll,
Eleisha (23:05):
them?
James (23:05):
so that encourages not only turning up but turning up
on time, and those kind ofpoints get, go into a little
bank thing and then you can cashthose points in for different
rewards, like extra break timeor if it's using a device, it's
using a device or you can getout of homework or get out of
things, so there's theindividual thing, but there's
also so we have whānau groups,they're like the old house
(23:27):
groups, and the end of each week,the whānau group with the best
attendance gets their flag ondisplay outside our school, so
there's that kind of community,communalkind of the group winning, kind
of going on, so
Eleisha (23:39):
Yeah.
James (23:40):
not only do you get points, so just turning up for
yourself, but you alsocontribute to a wider group,
just for turning up, which isawesome.
Eleisha (23:47):
Yeah For sure. Mandy, sorry, I got off a little bit
off track there, but, um, wewere talking about teachers and,
the important role that theyplay in turning around
attendance.
Mandy (23:56):
So I've got a small team because we've only got 40 kids,
I so I've got one permanent, uh,full time and two part-timers, a
couple of teacher aides, acleaner, and they're all on
board, you know, which is greatand they're really positive and
for those kids that find itdifficult to get to school,
(24:16):
they're really positive whenthey do come, you know, and they
make them feel welcome it's youknow, hey, how are you, nice to
see you back, we've missed you,you know, so kids love that,
they lap it up, they want thatrecognition. We don't
necessarily reward for coming toschool, um, the reward is for
being there. I try to make theprogrammes as exciting as
(24:39):
possible but, yeah staff are allon board, everybody, cleaner,
the whole nine yards. Cleaner'shusband even, he comes in too
and the same thing which is cool,it's it's positive, positive, we
try to make it a positive place.For the kids that are a
recidivist late-arrivers again,there's no big deal made, it's
just, yay, good to see you mate,pleased you're here, off to
(25:02):
class, or for one of them, gomake yourself some breakfast and
then,
Eleisha (25:05):
yeah.
Mandy (25:05):
then off to class. Because I want him to come - I
don't want him to wake up atnine o'clock and think, oh hell
I can't go to school now,because I'll get into trouble
because I'm late. I want him tothink, yeah, there's warm toast
waiting for me. I can have aconversation with someone when I
get to school and it'll all beokay.
Eleisha (25:22):
Yeah. What about you, Chris, how did you bring your
staff along?
Chris (25:27):
Well , first of is critical as others have alluded
to that they were on board,because we all need to buy into
what was in front of us and sowe all needed to work together
around that. So that wasimportant. So if we were to make
change happen and be successfulwith that we all had to buy in
then and it wasn't just theteachers. So it's across
everybody. You know, your sportscoordinator. We also have on
(25:49):
site a teen parent unit, uh,we've got an alternative class.
And so they get young peoplefrom different backgrounds and
circumstances, so we all neededto be in together on this. So
that was a key factor. We haveWā teachers and that's in other
spaces would be form teachers.
Eleisha (26:08):
Yeah.
Chris (26:09):
So at the micro level, and we've got around 1000
students just over 1000 students.So at the micro level they could
work with a smaller pool ofstudents and inquire around any
attendance issues - why were youlate, where have you been -
trying to help us understand whythere is a gap around the
attendance matter. And then inmost cases we could get positive
shifts. They could also makethat friendly phone call or be
(26:31):
that friendly contact with thefamily asking a little bit more
around that stuff. So staffbuy-in was critical. And then
also layer that withresponsibilities, as you
progress through that differentattendance circumstances. So if
the Wā teacher can at leastdeal with it at the superficial
level, at that lower level andfind some shift and change,
fantastic. But if we suddenlyfound us getting to a point
(26:54):
where we had some stubbornfamilies or students then the
Dean would pick that up and thenapproach it in a way that
allowed them then to sort oftake hold of that and then work
once again with a smaller group,but a group that had been a bit
more fixed about not coming toschool. So staff buy-in was
important. Having whānau huiwas also
Eleisha (27:14):
yeah.
Chris (27:15):
critical to bring our staff into that space as well.
So we've tried many differentthings and we still apply many
different things to make sure wecan message out the importance
of attendance. So when we haveour report evening we'll make
sure when we report back thefirst conversation we're going
to have with our families ishere's the credit levels that
someone's attained and here'syour attendance percentage and
(27:36):
then that just allows that totake place. I run a principal's
assembly where we acknowledgeattendance and the success of
those in attendance. So it'seasy to work on those at risk
and we do identify those at riskaround attendance but we also
must make sure we celebratethose that are at the other end
and celebrate their success cosobviously incentives for some
does draw on the others sittingon the borderline around coming
(27:59):
to school not coming to schoolso that's important in that
space. We also have at year ninea 100 club and that's a group of
students who so far so good haveattained a 100%
Eleisha (28:09):
Well,
Chris (28:09):
attendance. Once again, that gets them buzzing and
excited to make sure they don'tfall behind or have a reason not
to be at school. So we just tryand find different initiatives.
We've also set in place, whichis not a difficult mark to get
but you must achieve 80 percentattendance if you're going to
represent the school in a sportsteam, cultural group, any other
school performance group,nothing that will interrupt with
(28:32):
an assessment, the teaching andlearning. But if you want to be
involved in the school inanother way that's
representative of everythingthat we're trying to achieve
here, then you must meet that80% standard. That saw us get a
good shift, especially in term 1,Polyfest is a real huge beast
for us, students love that, theywant to be part of that.
Eleisha (28:51):
yeah,
Chris (28:51):
And then it's just finding the next hook in term
two, and then the next hook interm three that can really
sustain that. So, it's justfinding things that your
community, your students arepassionate about and use that
sometimes too as a bit ofleverage to get you where you
need to be.
Eleisha (29:05):
Yeah. And Mandy, you've talked about this, that, that
kind of need to track and, andrespond to absences, at the same
time as wanting to create aschool that, that kids want to
come to, so you've talked about,you know, the flexibility there.
So, you know, is it just amatter when you're trying to
balance that need of getting thekids to school, but also, you
(29:27):
know, making sure that you havea school that the kids want to
come to, how, how do you,
Mandy (29:31):
Yeah,
Eleisha (29:32):
you balance that?
Mandy (29:33):
It is a balance. Um, but also, there's tools we use like
our SMS system is great. Itspits out a report for me every
week that codes the kids undereach of the percentages that we
need to look at for the Ministryso that's a really handy tool.
And I map the kids that areshifting in the right direction.
Because we're a small staff andwe're a small school, we know
(29:55):
the kids and the parents in ourcommunity really, really well,
everything we do is based onrelationships and building
positive relationships so thatis the biggest thing, I think.
And so a lot of it is justtalking to people and all of us
are involved in that. Ifchildren aren't at school, we've
got a system where they useSchool Loop to report an absence,
(30:16):
if we haven't heard from anybodyby 9. 30 10 o'clock, my office
person's on the phone ringing,find you know, why they're not
here and can we help in any wayand is there anything we could
do tomorrow to make sure thatyou are at school. And then the
other side of it is thecurriculum and making sure that
we're making the programs we'rerunning as interesting as we can,
and making sure that eachindividual is getting the
(30:37):
learning that they not so muchwhole class stuff but groups and
individuals so everybody'sgetting the stuff that they need.
And they can see theirachievement when they're at
school, you know, for aprolonged amount of time, they
can see that their achievementis going in the right direction
and things get a little biteasier and they have more
understanding. And for a lot ofkids that's a real eye-opener
Eleisha (30:59):
Yeah. Well, and it's a reward for going to school, eh.
Mandy (31:02):
Yeah it is, yeah, that
Eleisha (31:03):
Yeah.
Mandy (31:04):
is the ultimate reward.
Eleisha (31:05):
Yeah. Um, James, what about you?
James (31:08):
Yeah, I think definitely tracking and recording is really,
really important because it mapswhy, but that culture thing is
like if you don't have culture,then you just there's no point
doing anything like attendance,you're not even gonna get your
staff to turn up and talk aboutattendance if the culture
doesn't exist, and it's that'ssomething people always bang on
about, it's the that wholeculture eats strategy for
(31:29):
breakfast kind of thing, it'salways thrown around, but it
really does, like you have tohave that culture where
everybody's on board to makechange, and then you have to
make your school a place wherepeople want to be. For us it's
primary school children sothey're a little bit easier to
convince than slightly olderkids but we have to make
learning interesting and we haveto do an hour an hour an hour
(31:50):
kind of thing but we still haveto make that interesting and
exciting, and we also have totalk about the fact that
sometimes it's not going to bethe most interesting and
exciting thing that you're goingto do today, but in that sense
it's important to have somethingelse exciting that they're going
to do at or breaktime or optionsfor those, you know, your
neuro-diverse kids or your kidsthat respond better hanging out
(32:11):
with the caretaker or coming outwith me when I want to go and
get out of the office and fix adeck or bang some nails in a
deck or something like that. Ithink lots of schools do it but
we have we've got a bike track,we've got bikes that the kids
can ride, we have a pool that isheated so it's open at least
half of the year, there'scooking clubs, we've got enviro
(32:31):
clubs, there's all those kind ofthings that somewhere along the
line hopefully there's somethingthat you want to go and be part
of or do it and it's it's athere's a suppose there's a
culture of making sure we targetsome of those groups to some of
children that we know either theinteresting behavior or the
interesting attendance sogetting them on board as a
leader for that group so in ourcooking club there's a couple of
(32:52):
leaders that do the set up andhelp with the dishes and help
with the planning of what'sgoing next, so making sure while
everybody wants to be that, butmaking sure we target a couple
of people to give them a reallygood reason to be at school, to
make sure that they know thatthey're contributing to the club,
they're part of a team, theteacher needs them to do ideas
and all that sort of stuff sothat's proved to be successful.
Eleisha (33:11):
it's really cool. Wh about you Chris?
Chris (33:13):
Yeah, well the tracking's important and it's important to
have really good SMS system tomake sure your data is correct.
So we're a Kamar school. We'vegot P. A. R. O. T as part of
that new programme. So it givesyou really clear data on where
you sit as a school aroundattendance. And the advantage of
good staff in this space is,especially with my deans, they
(33:35):
can really focus on what thatlooks like.
Eleisha (33:37):
Mm.
Chris (33:37):
And so when you combine those two together the tracking,
the information that comesthrough it's then having the
right person at the other end tobe able to decipher what that
looks like and then be able tobreak it down so we can make
meaningful change for thosethose people that we are
identifying as I've said earlierthat are at risk but also what I
said before was also making surethat the tracking data also
(33:58):
celebrates those that are doingwell.
Eleisha (34:00):
Mm.
Chris (34:00):
And that are present and and want to be here. So you want
to set a culture where kids dowant to be at school and you try
and make your school a placewhere they do find it exciting,
they enjoy the company of others,they enjoy the staff, they enjoy
what they learn and they enjoythe opportunities for things
that are not presented to themin another setting. So, in
Auckland, especially you're in avery competitive market, you've
(34:22):
got a lot of different schoolsaround you, you've got a lot of
people exiting for thoseopportunities elsewhere. And
you're just trying to make thatwhen eyes are on your own school
and they look at what you haveto offer, that it is an
environment that does attractthem and makes them want to be
here,
Eleisha (34:38):
Mmm.
Chris (34:39):
not see it as a second or third choice if they didn't get
where they wanted to go in thefirst place.
Eleisha (34:45):
Yeah. Hey some great advice there, thank you all.
Chris, Mandy and James are goingto stay with us for the next
episode, where we'll talk aboutworking across schools to make
attendance priority for ākongaand whānau. See you then.
Kia ora and welcome to The Principals, a podcast series
for aspiring and current tumuakiin Aotearoa New Zealand. I'm
Eleisha McNeill. Studentattendance has become one of the
big challenges facing NewZealand schools. With new
attendance management plansbecoming mandatory from 2026 and
expanded attendance services onthe horizon, principals are
(00:31):
under increasing pressure tofind effective solutions to
chronic absenteeism. But someschools are beating the odds,
and in this episode I'm speakingwith three principals who have
successfully turned around poorattendance in their schools. You
might want a pen and paper forthis episode, there are some
great tips in here. Let's startoff with some introductions.
Chris (00:51):
Sure, kia ora koutou katoa, ko Chris Bean tōku ingoa,
ko tumuaki aho ki Te Kura oTangaroa, so I'm principal for
Tangaroa College. We're based inthe heart of Ōtara, South
Auckland, and we have a schoolpopulation of around just over a
thousand students. We have avery strong, passionate
community who love theopportunity of coming to school
(01:13):
and the learning that's providedto them. And we are heavily
Pasifika and Māori with a nicepopulation of Filipino whānau
that are now coming into thespace and with a wonderful
community around us.
Eleisha (01:29):
Great. Thank you. Mandy.
Mandy (01:31):
Kia ora koutou, I'm Mandy Dodds, I'm the principal of
Kūmara School on the West Coastof the South Island. We have 40
students at our school mostlyfrom farms, so mostly farm
owners and farm workers. Most ofthe parents love school and want
their kids to attend regularly.So, just good, hardworking
(01:53):
people, really
Eleisha (01:55):
Cool. Thank you. James.
James (01:58):
Kia ora, ko James Christie tōku ingoa, nō
Pukekohe ahau. I'm the tumuakiat Mauku Primary School, which
is a little rural primary schoolof 160-odd children about 10
minutes from Pukekohe. So ourschool is made up of farmers
from the area and lifestyleblockers. So we have in the old
numbers, decile 10 families andthen we also have a bus that
(02:20):
comes out from a lowersocio-economic area of Pukekohe
which would come with what youwould classically call your
decile one range of students. Wehave a wonderful school and I
love the job.
Eleisha (02:31):
Excellent. So obviously we're here today to talk about
attendance. So I wanted to startby asking each of you what the
attendance situation was likewhen you first started in your
kura. Maybe Chris start with you.
Chris (02:47):
Yep, I came into this kura 2023. So when I came into
this space, you know, theattendance was okay, but there
were still gaps in the regularattendance, I guess, across the
board and that was the, thelearning I was taking away from
what was occurring within thiscommunity. So, I really just
wanted to make sure that I couldunderstand better why we had
(03:08):
sort of a lower turnout notacross the board in everything,
but just in certain spaces. Andobviously with that loss of time
in the school, meant a loss oflearning time in the classroom.
So, uh, that was what I wastrying to address and trying to
correct once we startedrecognising uh, where our issues
were.
Eleisha (03:25):
And what were those issues?
Chris (03:27):
I suppose when I walked into this space, we'd just come
out of COVID and in that time,obviously, there was a lot of
disengagement around thelearning for our young ones.
Eleisha (03:35):
Yeah.
Chris (03:36):
Uh, we too also are in a transient community so uh, there
was a lot of shifting and movingas result of all those sort of,
um, factors that were playing apart and, it was really just
trying to get back into normalroutines, and I know it sounds
simple to say coming to schoolshould be straightforward, but
for many in our space, it was abit of a struggle. And I was
just trying to go back to wherewe were, I was saying how
(03:58):
important it was to be at schooland what being at school then
meant and tried to show thecorrelation between the learning
in the classroom and successmoving forward. So there was
that to compile around it. Andthen we also found that some of
our students were also engagedin work during that COVID window
and also continued to workbecause for some, it was a
(04:19):
supplementary income for thefamily. For some, they may have
been only income earner from ajob perspective, so they picked
up a lot of part-time work. AndI guess what was important was
trying to understand what thatlooked like for them and how we
could also make school alearning success in a space that
they could still attend, butbalance out around that other
(04:40):
important factor where they weresupplying and supporting family
from a financial perspective.
Eleisha (04:45):
Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough challenge.
Chris (04:47):
It's a very tough challenge and, you know, you can
look at it in black and whiteand say, "Okay, that makes
sense." But when you really hearthe story of why they need to
work and all that, that goeswith it, then yeah, there's a
bit more understanding aroundwhat we need to do then to sort
of compensate that sort of timeaway. We also find that a lot of
our young people have to remainhome to look after the younger
(05:08):
ones
Eleisha (05:08):
Hmm.
Chris (05:08):
or even the older ones in the family. So we heavily are
Pasifika and Māori, so that isa key element of their care for
each other. So it was balancingthat out, and then also when
family events take place thattake priority sometimes in a
family's mind, that means thatwe also saw disengagement from
teaching and learning andattendance as a result. So it
was trying to factor in allthose different concerns and how
(05:31):
to understand that then how towork our way around that I guess.
Eleisha (05:35):
Definitely. Yeah. It certainly sounds like a really a
really massive challenge. Mandy,what about what about you in
Kūmara, what was it like there?
Mandy (05:44):
So, I started here pre-covid, 2018, and attendance
was pretty good. We've alwaysgot a few outliers but it's
pretty good. After COVID, it wasabout reengaging and that for
some is still quite difficultand I'm lead of our Kāhui Āko
down here as well that works inthe Greymouth area of the West
(06:06):
Coast. And we found as acollective that after COVID,
that whole thing about beingabsent because you're ill has
been a real issue - how ill isill enough to be at home, how
sick is it OK to come to school?Because it is OK to come to
school if you've got a bit of asore throat or a bit of a runny
(06:26):
nose or a wee bit of a headache,but any whiff of anything,
people are still staying at homeand some using it as an excuse
to stay at home and not come toschool. So we're, as a Kāhui
Āko working in the health spaceas well with some health
professionals to try and draftup some info that we can send
out to parents that they can puton their fridge and use that
(06:49):
information. The other thingthat we've done is much the same.
Everybody's got a story. And ifthey're absent a lot of the time,
it isn't just about the beingabsent, it's about the story
that goes behind that or withthat, and trying to work with
parents, caregivers, whānau,the children to work out how we
(07:10):
can address those issues, if wecan address those issues. Some
of the things we've been reallysuccessful with is supplying
uniform, supplying food,applying school products like
bags and pens, pencils, any gearthat they need for school that
we've done that through theKāhui. Also getting kids to
(07:31):
school, providing transport,simple things like, one of the
girls I've got here just wascompletely disengaged, because
she's a year eight, and whowants to come to school when,
you know, you could be at homedoing whatever. So she works in
the morning on her basicschoolwork, in the afternoon,
she's got some choice thingsthat she can do. She's really
(07:53):
into art, so we've got her someart supplies and that's gone
into well I can write about myart. So she's still doing all
the schoolwork, but she'sgetting the other stuff as well
and her attendance has gone fromless than, she was in the red
zone. She's up in orange now, soshe's doing pretty good, she'
(08:13):
getting there, she's doingreally well. Another boy, he was
disengaged and we sent him downto one of our, our cleaner's
partner is a mechanic and he'sretired. So this young man goes
down to his place and pullsmotors apart once a week, if
he's been at school all week,and if he's done his work. So
(08:36):
and that's worked really well,that's really successful.
Eleisha (08:39):
those creative solutions.
Mandy (08:40):
Just a few little things but yeah, seemed to work. It's
thinking out of the box a littlebit I think.
Eleisha (08:47):
Yes, sounds like really great solutions to a big problem.
James (08:50):
Um,
Eleisha (08:51):
James.
James (08:52):
I've been at Mauku for I think 10 years, but in the
swivel chair for a year and abit. So like Chris and Mandy
have said, the COVID thing like,although we're well out of that
it's had a lot of lingering kindof impacts and people being a
bit nervous about, yeah, ifthey've got a sniffle going to
school. So Mauku's a funnylittle school because we're
rural but we're sort of 10minutes from Pukekohe, so
(09:14):
there's a township but we're inpaddock. So there's only about
half a dozen houses around us.There's one child that walks to
school. The rest are eitherfarming or lifestyle kind of
block people around us. Or theycome from Pukekohe on a bus from
a lower social economic part ofPukekohe. So there's different
reasons. So some of the reasonsfor not being here is because
(09:35):
we're going on a family trip toAustralia and we're going in the
term time because the flightsare cheaper. And at the same
time, someone's not coming toschool because they couldn't get
up in time to make the busbecause they have to wake
themselves up because Mum andDad are already at work sort of
thing. So lots of differentlittle kind of reasons. T unique
to us but they're just a bit allover the show.
Eleisha (09:55):
Yeah. So you've talked about some of the causes of less
than perfect attendance for alot of the students. How did you
begin to understand the reasonswhy kids weren't coming to
school when you first started,ehm, Chris?
Chris (10:10):
When I walked into this role, I thought it was important
for me just to step back andjust digest what this whole
environment looked like. Sothere's no point in rushing in
and coming in with your ownideas around what could possibly
facilitate change, but if youdon't know what's sort of there
in front of you. So it wasimportant just to sit back, but
it was also important to sitwith those too in the SLT space,
(10:30):
our deans, our teachers, throughmembers of our board just to
understand what this environmentreally looked like. And so it
didn't take long to recognizewhat I raised earlier were those
key factors um around whyattendance was low for some. We
still had good uptake by manystudents and many families, but
there was obviously a pocketstill not engaging to the point
(10:51):
where we where we felt contentthat we could have them in our
school space and we could movetowards success. But I think
once you know what that issuelooks like for you or those
issues look like for you, thenyou can really personalize your
approach. And each school'sdifferent, of course, and you
just try and target where youneed to and chew off the bits
that you can chew and getsuccess with, rather than trying
(11:14):
for for too many things to justsolve one initiative.
Eleisha (11:18):
Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, a, a huge raft of
differences for the kids and thereasons that they weren't
attending school. What are the,what are some of the solutions
that you came up with to helpthem get to school more often?
Chris (11:33):
One key initiative was working along our SLT, our Deans,
our staff, and tried to solvethe problem as a collective.
Many times when you end up inthis principal space, you're
meant to be solution for many,many things that go around in
our circle. So it was justdrawing on those that had those
strengths as well andunderstanding so we could be
(11:54):
stronger as one, I guess, whenwe tried to put solutions
together.
Eleisha (11:56):
Mm.
Chris (11:57):
And also working alongside the Ministry of
Education was very positive atthat time when I jumped into
this space. We had rapidresource funds available.
Eleisha (12:05):
Mm-hmm.
Chris (12:05):
And that allowed us to then put some money, funding
towards some thoughts that wethought could help us solve
those solutions aroundattendance. One of them was
employing our own employmentofficers we called that person
the truancy and engagementofficer and their role was very
much like an outside truancyperson. But because their role
(12:26):
covers too many schools, wealready had someone on site that
we could say here's our person,here's the family or the student
where we're struggling with toget some positive shift in. And
so with that rapid resource fund,we trialled for a term what that
could look like and it proved tobe a success, because we got
someone who was from thecommunity and understood the
(12:47):
community, and was a friendlyface to go knocking on the door
of our community. And that's thebig challenge, because it is not
easy going into someone else'sspace, their home, and then
asking questions around where isso and so, but it was a success.
So what it meant for me now wasseeing that success was that
we're at least engaging withfamilies, having a conversation,
(13:09):
having that understanding. Therewas no instant turn back the
following day to school, but itgave us an understanding of
where we were sitting with someof those issues that were
surrounding those families. Andtherefore it just gave a bit
more time then to find ways fromthe different individual
families of how we could applydifferent strategies to get them
back into our space. And then itallowed me to also then say to
(13:31):
ourselves, we needed to have asafety and security officer at
the front gate. Because at thattime too students were freely
moving in and out of the schoolduring those interval and lunch
times, and so having someone inthat space, the right person
once again, having the rightprocess in place now where you
must exit with a pass that'sbeen granted from the office,
(13:52):
it's just to tidy that up,because it just allowed the odd
student to slip out and in, butthat person would also have a
circle of influence around otherfriends who probably wouldn't do
those certain things and so theyjust sort of tagged along so it
closed that door a lot. And thenthe good thing is once we
started getting kids into school,that was fine, it was then now
getting them into class.
Eleisha (14:12):
Yeah.
Chris (14:13):
So it was it was shuffling them around. So then
we employed a student engagementofficer that we have operating
around the school during thoseinterval and period times,
who'll get the kids off to class,but also gets those who seem to
enjoy their time in the toilet alot longer than they should be.
And so it gets them out and intothe classroom space as well. So
(14:33):
it's trying to take initiativeslike that that you can build
capacity amongst your own staff,and may cost you from your
operations to fund such things,but it's well worth it, I've
found it's well worth it,because it's just has shown to
everyone that we value theirpresence, we value attendance,
and we do all we can to makesure if you're in our space,
(14:54):
you're in the classroom, you'relearning.
Eleisha (14:56):
Yeah. You mentioned there, just going back to
getting kids to school, youmentioned that you came up with
some strategies that you usedwith, with different families.
Can you give us some examples ofsome of those strategies?
Chris (15:09):
Well the first one was to make that we engage with them in
a way that allowed them not tofeel like we were putting
pressure on them.So theapproach was friendly, you know
initial phone call or emails, aswe find in this space too a lot
of the information we havearound phone numbers and email
addresses are not correct orhaven't been updated.
Eleisha (15:30):
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Chris (15:31):
So like I said, the person that we had knocking on
the door was someone who waspart of our community, and it
was key. So they understood thespace they were walking into, so
it was just that friendlyapproach without anything being
too heavy, so it was reallymaking sure that they understood
the conversation was more aroundunderstanding where they were at
so then we could find ways tobest support their young one
coming into our space or for thefamily to be aware we value the
(15:54):
young one being in space, someof the families we're engaging
with, they themselves have had apoor experience with school life
so it's just to reverse maybetheir experiences to try and
support their own young onescoming into our our setting.
Eleisha (16:08):
So just being kind of flexible and a little bit
creative in the way that youhandle that. And James, what
about you? What strategies haveyou used to try and improve
attendance in your kura?
James (16:19):
Do you know what? Really similar to what Chris has just
talked about. L to his collegeproblems, it reminds me of why I
maybe prefer primary school abit better or a bit more because
it's different. But it's thesame kind of basic I suppose,
things like it's making sure thechildren want to be in the
classrooms at school. I meanthat's the essence of it. There
was the same sort of stuff. It'sabout building those
(16:41):
relationships within thecommunity. Our school's got 160
children, so it's far easier toknow pretty much everybody and
you really, really do know thepeople that you need to well,
you know who they are, maybetrying to get in contact with
them and talk to them is nigh onimpossible but it tends to be a
smaller group and we'd go roundto their house and meet them and
have a conversation. Chrisalluded to it a little bit with
(17:03):
the, they might have interestingexperiences of school when they
were you know, going throughlife and that puts them
potentially with a negative lenslooking at school anyway and
they then don't feel sometimesas inclined I suppose to send
their children to school. I wasthinking about it before. They
do, there's a lot parentsempowering their children to
stay at home these days, there'sa story we had, it's an ex
(17:25):
student of ours but the mumworks here and she said, I just
had to bring my son into Maukutoday because he's not going to
the intermediate. He got his ziton his nose and he was quite
embarrassed about going in so wedecided it would be better that
he'd stay at home
Eleisha (17:36):
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well.
James (17:36):
and we're kind of like really like where's the best
place for your child right now.What, what could they learn out
of going to school with a zit,like there's going to be more
coming, they're only 11 or 12.So it's that kind of getting in
and having those conversationswith families about, you know,
like school's really important,and showing them what it looks
like on paper as well, whathaving a number of days off
looks like, relating that for alot of them, relating it to work,
(17:59):
saying, look if you're away thisoften from work how would that
look for you and they all, theanswer is it would not look good
like, you'd see you later jobbut we're lucky in Franklin, we
have the Franklin AttendanceService which is, as a small
school we have to, you know, wedon't get our own kind of person
but we buy into them, wellthey're funded for us and we use
them as our kind of middleman toget into their homes to have a
(18:22):
conversation, they'll turn upwith food parcels, they're
acting on behalf of the schoolbut they're not the school, so
it kind of it doesn't have that,I think for a parent it doesn't
have the fear of the school'scoming looking for me. It's just
a friendly kind of local that'sbringing us some food and they
want to have a chat about whyschool's difficult. And it
starts to begin to break downthose kind of barriers, and at
(18:42):
the end of the day, like I saidbefore it, it's making sure that
the children have a reason forbeing at school and if they want
to be at school they'll convincetheir parents to drop them off
at school, they'll remember towake up early for the bus.
Eleisha (18:53):
Yeah. What about, what about you, Mandy? Did you take a
similar approach, you know, youmentioned providing different
things to help encourage thekids into school, whether that
was um, food or, you know,school uniform, things like that.
Did you, also, you know, visitthe homes or have someone visit
the homes to, to talk to thefamilies? How did that work in
(19:15):
Kūmara?
Mandy (19:16):
We're part of the attendance service, that
services the whole of our KāhuiĀko. So yes, we've used the
attendance service to start that.I spend a lot of my time first
thing in the morning and at 3o'clock at the gate, having
Eleisha (19:31):
Yeah.
Mandy (19:31):
conversations with parents in cars,because school's
been a negative place for them,they won't come in to school and
so I spend a lot of time downout there talking to parents
through car windows, which hasbeen really successful. It's
making a connection and now onefather who would never engage at
all, he will now send me a textif his son's sick, that doesn't
(19:54):
sound much, but that's a hugestep forward in trust and
communication for us. So reallyit is about building
relationships and doing it fromus but also doing it from the
attendance service if needs tobe.
Eleisha (20:06):
Yeah, exac. Um, so what role did your staff play in
turning around the attendance,you know, obviously it needs to
be a school wide priority. Howdid you guys bring the staff
along, or is it something thatthey all understood and valued,
James?
James (20:23):
Yeah, no, or that I think they probably did value a little
bit and had some level ofunderstanding. But I think just
as of late, the numbers are alot more kind of upfront and
present. And there is alwaysbeen that kind of thing, like I
was a teacher once, not thatlong ago, if you have one or two
kids out of your class for theday, it makes teaching a class
(20:45):
that much easier. So there'sthat kind of just little thing
there that used to go on. But Ithink that for us, I think
that's quite it's gone now.Teachers on the flip side know
that if the children aren't thenit makes their job harder in the
long run with trying to get them
Eleisha (21:00):
Yeah.
James (21:01):
back on track with their learning. Funnily enough, a
generalisation, that thechildren with low attendance
often have low achievement aswell. And so we're trying to
move them anyway. They're notturning up to get moved forward,
like it's just a big neverending quite tough cycle.So ,
yeah, really when we kind ofcame up with a bit of a push
(21:21):
around it and the kind of littleinitiatives and the carrots that
we put out to the kids and allthat sort of stuff, we had to
get, like nothing works withoutthe teachers buy-in. It's really
easy from our chair. That wasone of the things being a new
principal that I learned quitequickly is you can have the
greatest idea in the world, butif you haven't thought it
through and don't have your teamon board, or at least most of
(21:42):
them, then it's just going todive bomb. So getting the
teachers on board was critical.Sharing with them the numbers,
talking about what that lookedlike, sharing about what we
would do from a seniorleadership kind of team and who
we work with. And they alsoworked out for themselves that
they had to make sure there's areason for the children to be in
(22:02):
their class.
Eleisha (22:03):
Mm. Mm. Yeah. Mm.
James (22:03):
Their class had to be great. Like, children aren't
actually at school for that muchof a year. I think we've only,
not long gone past the 100th dayof learning for the year you
know and we're well over halfway through the year. So making
sure that they're there, makingsure that the teachers know that
they have to be engaging andexciting every single day. They
have to turn up. We havefeelings on stuff going on, but
(22:25):
we have to park that sometimesand do our best for these kids
because they've only got thatone day in our class in that one
year or whatever it looks likefor us to make the difference.
So they have been crucial inmaking a difference.
Eleisha (22:37):
Yeah. You mentioned there carrots for the kids to,
you know, what, what kinds of,what kinds of things do you do
to encourage them?
James (22:45):
Yeah, so we do have some schemes, I suppose, to encourage
children to be at school. So wehave a school-wide kind of
reward system, and it's linkedtowards PB4L, but you will get
award points for all sorts ofthings, but having the correct
uniform is one, but also beingin class in the morning when the
teacher does the roll,
Eleisha (23:05):
them?
James (23:05):
so that encourages not only turning up but turning up
on time, and those kind ofpoints get, go into a little
bank thing and then you can cashthose points in for different
rewards, like extra break timeor if it's using a device, it's
using a device or you can getout of homework or get out of
things, so there's theindividual thing, but there's
also so we have whānau groups,they're like the old house
(23:27):
groups, and the end of each week,the whānau group with the best
attendance gets their flag ondisplay outside our school, so
there's that kind of community,communalkind of the group winning, kind
of going on, so
Eleisha (23:39):
Yeah.
James (23:40):
not only do you get points, so just turning up for
yourself, but you alsocontribute to a wider group,
just for turning up, which isawesome.
Eleisha (23:47):
Yeah For sure. Mandy, sorry, I got off a little bit
off track there, but, um, wewere talking about teachers and,
the important role that theyplay in turning around
attendance.
Mandy (23:56):
So I've got a small team because we've only got 40 kids,
I so I've got one permanent, uh,full time and two part-timers, a
couple of teacher aides, acleaner, and they're all on
board, you know, which is greatand they're really positive and
for those kids that find itdifficult to get to school,
(24:16):
they're really positive whenthey do come, you know, and they
make them feel welcome it's youknow, hey, how are you, nice to
see you back, we've missed you,you know, so kids love that,
they lap it up, they want thatrecognition. We don't
necessarily reward for coming toschool, um, the reward is for
being there. I try to make theprogrammes as exciting as
(24:39):
possible but, yeah staff are allon board, everybody, cleaner,
the whole nine yards. Cleaner'shusband even, he comes in too
and the same thing which is cool,it's it's positive, positive, we
try to make it a positive place.For the kids that are a
recidivist late-arrivers again,there's no big deal made, it's
just, yay, good to see you mate,pleased you're here, off to
(25:02):
class, or for one of them, gomake yourself some breakfast and
then,
Eleisha (25:05):
yeah.
Mandy (25:05):
then off to class. Because I want him to come - I
don't want him to wake up atnine o'clock and think, oh hell
I can't go to school now,because I'll get into trouble
because I'm late. I want him tothink, yeah, there's warm toast
waiting for me. I can have aconversation with someone when I
get to school and it'll all beokay.
Eleisha (25:22):
Yeah. What about you, Chris, how did you bring your
staff along?
Chris (25:27):
Well , first of is critical as others have alluded
to that they were on board,because we all need to buy into
what was in front of us and sowe all needed to work together
around that. So that wasimportant. So if we were to make
change happen and be successfulwith that we all had to buy in
then and it wasn't just theteachers. So it's across
everybody. You know, your sportscoordinator. We also have on
(25:49):
site a teen parent unit, uh,we've got an alternative class.
And so they get young peoplefrom different backgrounds and
circumstances, so we all neededto be in together on this. So
that was a key factor. We haveWā teachers and that's in other
spaces would be form teachers.
Eleisha (26:08):
Yeah.
Chris (26:09):
So at the micro level, and we've got around 1000
students just over 1000 students.So at the micro level they could
work with a smaller pool ofstudents and inquire around any
attendance issues - why were youlate, where have you been -
trying to help us understand whythere is a gap around the
attendance matter. And then inmost cases we could get positive
shifts. They could also makethat friendly phone call or be
(26:31):
that friendly contact with thefamily asking a little bit more
around that stuff. So staffbuy-in was critical. And then
also layer that withresponsibilities, as you
progress through that differentattendance circumstances. So if
the Wā teacher can at leastdeal with it at the superficial
level, at that lower level andfind some shift and change,
fantastic. But if we suddenlyfound us getting to a point
(26:54):
where we had some stubbornfamilies or students then the
Dean would pick that up and thenapproach it in a way that
allowed them then to sort oftake hold of that and then work
once again with a smaller group,but a group that had been a bit
more fixed about not coming toschool. So staff buy-in was
important. Having whānau huiwas also
Eleisha (27:14):
yeah.
Chris (27:15):
critical to bring our staff into that space as well.
So we've tried many differentthings and we still apply many
different things to make sure wecan message out the importance
of attendance. So when we haveour report evening we'll make
sure when we report back thefirst conversation we're going
to have with our families ishere's the credit levels that
someone's attained and here'syour attendance percentage and
(27:36):
then that just allows that totake place. I run a principal's
assembly where we acknowledgeattendance and the success of
those in attendance. So it'seasy to work on those at risk
and we do identify those at riskaround attendance but we also
must make sure we celebratethose that are at the other end
and celebrate their success cosobviously incentives for some
does draw on the others sittingon the borderline around coming
(27:59):
to school not coming to schoolso that's important in that
space. We also have at year ninea 100 club and that's a group of
students who so far so good haveattained a 100%
Eleisha (28:09):
Well,
Chris (28:09):
attendance. Once again, that gets them buzzing and
excited to make sure they don'tfall behind or have a reason not
to be at school. So we just tryand find different initiatives.
We've also set in place, whichis not a difficult mark to get
but you must achieve 80 percentattendance if you're going to
represent the school in a sportsteam, cultural group, any other
school performance group,nothing that will interrupt with
(28:32):
an assessment, the teaching andlearning. But if you want to be
involved in the school inanother way that's
representative of everythingthat we're trying to achieve
here, then you must meet that80% standard. That saw us get a
good shift, especially in term 1,Polyfest is a real huge beast
for us, students love that, theywant to be part of that.
Eleisha (28:51):
yeah,
Chris (28:51):
And then it's just finding the next hook in term
two, and then the next hook interm three that can really
sustain that. So, it's justfinding things that your
community, your students arepassionate about and use that
sometimes too as a bit ofleverage to get you where you
need to be.
Eleisha (29:05):
Yeah. And Mandy, you've talked about this, that, that
kind of need to track and, andrespond to absences, at the same
time as wanting to create aschool that, that kids want to
come to, so you've talked about,you know, the flexibility there.
So, you know, is it just amatter when you're trying to
balance that need of getting thekids to school, but also, you
(29:27):
know, making sure that you havea school that the kids want to
come to, how, how do you,
Mandy (29:31):
Yeah,
Eleisha (29:32):
you balance that?
Mandy (29:33):
It is a balance. Um, but also, there's tools we use like
our SMS system is great. Itspits out a report for me every
week that codes the kids undereach of the percentages that we
need to look at for the Ministryso that's a really handy tool.
And I map the kids that areshifting in the right direction.
Because we're a small staff andwe're a small school, we know
(29:55):
the kids and the parents in ourcommunity really, really well,
everything we do is based onrelationships and building
positive relationships so thatis the biggest thing, I think.
And so a lot of it is justtalking to people and all of us
are involved in that. Ifchildren aren't at school, we've
got a system where they useSchool Loop to report an absence,
(30:16):
if we haven't heard from anybodyby 9. 30 10 o'clock, my office
person's on the phone ringing,find you know, why they're not
here and can we help in any wayand is there anything we could
do tomorrow to make sure thatyou are at school. And then the
other side of it is thecurriculum and making sure that
we're making the programs we'rerunning as interesting as we can,
and making sure that eachindividual is getting the
(30:37):
learning that they not so muchwhole class stuff but groups and
individuals so everybody'sgetting the stuff that they need.
And they can see theirachievement when they're at
school, you know, for aprolonged amount of time, they
can see that their achievementis going in the right direction
and things get a little biteasier and they have more
understanding. And for a lot ofkids that's a real eye-opener
Eleisha (30:59):
Yeah. Well, and it's a reward for going to school, eh.
Mandy (31:02):
Yeah it is, yeah, that
Eleisha (31:03):
Yeah.
Mandy (31:04):
is the ultimate reward.
Eleisha (31:05):
Yeah. Um, James, what about you?
James (31:08):
Yeah, I think definitely tracking and recording is really,
really important because it mapswhy, but that culture thing is
like if you don't have culture,then you just there's no point
doing anything like attendance,you're not even gonna get your
staff to turn up and talk aboutattendance if the culture
doesn't exist, and it's that'ssomething people always bang on
about, it's the that wholeculture eats strategy for
(31:29):
breakfast kind of thing, it'salways thrown around, but it
really does, like you have tohave that culture where
everybody's on board to makechange, and then you have to
make your school a place wherepeople want to be. For us it's
primary school children sothey're a little bit easier to
convince than slightly olderkids but we have to make
learning interesting and we haveto do an hour an hour an hour
(31:50):
kind of thing but we still haveto make that interesting and
exciting, and we also have totalk about the fact that
sometimes it's not going to bethe most interesting and
exciting thing that you're goingto do today, but in that sense
it's important to have somethingelse exciting that they're going
to do at or breaktime or optionsfor those, you know, your
neuro-diverse kids or your kidsthat respond better hanging out
(32:11):
with the caretaker or coming outwith me when I want to go and
get out of the office and fix adeck or bang some nails in a
deck or something like that. Ithink lots of schools do it but
we have we've got a bike track,we've got bikes that the kids
can ride, we have a pool that isheated so it's open at least
half of the year, there'scooking clubs, we've got enviro
(32:31):
clubs, there's all those kind ofthings that somewhere along the
line hopefully there's somethingthat you want to go and be part
of or do it and it's it's athere's a suppose there's a
culture of making sure we targetsome of those groups to some of
children that we know either theinteresting behavior or the
interesting attendance sogetting them on board as a
leader for that group so in ourcooking club there's a couple of
(32:52):
leaders that do the set up andhelp with the dishes and help
with the planning of what'sgoing next, so making sure while
everybody wants to be that, butmaking sure we target a couple
of people to give them a reallygood reason to be at school, to
make sure that they know thatthey're contributing to the club,
they're part of a team, theteacher needs them to do ideas
and all that sort of stuff sothat's proved to be successful.
Eleisha (33:11):
it's really cool. Wh about you Chris?
Chris (33:13):
Yeah, well the tracking's important and it's important to
have really good SMS system tomake sure your data is correct.
So we're a Kamar school. We'vegot P. A. R. O. T as part of
that new programme. So it givesyou really clear data on where
you sit as a school aroundattendance. And the advantage of
good staff in this space is,especially with my deans, they
(33:35):
can really focus on what thatlooks like.
Eleisha (33:37):
Mm.
Chris (33:37):
And so when you combine those two together the tracking,
the information that comesthrough it's then having the
right person at the other end tobe able to decipher what that
looks like and then be able tobreak it down so we can make
meaningful change for thosethose people that we are
identifying as I've said earlierthat are at risk but also what I
said before was also making surethat the tracking data also
(33:58):
celebrates those that are doingwell.
Eleisha (34:00):
Mm.
Chris (34:00):
And that are present and and want to be here. So you want
to set a culture where kids dowant to be at school and you try
and make your school a placewhere they do find it exciting,
they enjoy the company of others,they enjoy the staff, they enjoy
what they learn and they enjoythe opportunities for things
that are not presented to themin another setting. So, in
Auckland, especially you're in avery competitive market, you've
(34:22):
got a lot of different schoolsaround you, you've got a lot of
people exiting for thoseopportunities elsewhere. And
you're just trying to make thatwhen eyes are on your own school
and they look at what you haveto offer, that it is an
environment that does attractthem and makes them want to be
here,
Eleisha (34:38):
Mmm.
Chris (34:39):
not see it as a second or third choice if they didn't get
where they wanted to go in thefirst place.
Eleisha (34:45):
Yeah. Hey some great advice there, thank you all.
Chris, Mandy and James are goingto stay with us for the next
episode, where we'll talk aboutworking across schools to make
attendance priority for ākongaand whānau. See you then.
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