Cathy Chalmers: Manurewa Attendance Service Lead Principal on the Government's new attendance services and targets

It's thought the roll out of David Seymour's new attendance services will make a difference.  

The Associate Education Minister's putting $140 million towards improving attendance over four years, promising to reach twice the number of students. 

Extra support is going to 170 schools with chronic absence. 

Manurewa Attendance Service Lead Principal Cathy Chalmers told Ryan Bridge it's a much fairer way of distributing the resourcing, but there are still challenges.  

She says her school's attendance floats around 60%, so they hope to reach Seymour's goals, but it's an aspirational target. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
David Semol's school attendance crack down continues. So he's scrapped
the old contracts that they were operating under and set
tougher attendance targets. One hundred and twenty three million dollars
extra over four years, eighty three new deals, one hundred
and seventy schools that get extra help for chronic absentees.
Three percent of funding will go to basics like uniforms, devices,
transport for kids who can't afford them. Kathy Charmers is

(00:23):
Green Meadows Intermediate principle lead principle of the Money Attendance
Service with me now, Kathy, good.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Morning, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
So what's happened with your contract under this?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yes, so we've won a contract for al Alphaston Tucknamy catchment,
so we only applied for that part of Manuoa. So
and that's the area that we'll be served. Yeah, so
it's a it's a good contract.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
These the way that he's designed it, doing things like
instead of getting money based on how many students you've got,
but based on how many students you've got absent are
these smart things will make a difference.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I believe they will. I think that's a much fairer
way of distributing the resourcing. Our number of attendant services
that we will be able to get in our area
has doubled. Having said that, we also have taken on
the non enrolled contract as well, so that you know
the number of cases will get will be increasing as

(01:23):
well and be a little bit more complex.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
We know that by twenty thirty the goal is eighty
percent of students attending school more than ninety percent of
the time. What's your area at the moment, what are
where are you at and do you think you can
get there?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
My school at the moment floats around sixty percent. I'd
like to think that we could get there, but it's
a pretty it's a pretty aspirational target to reach. Two aspects.
For that four days off in the winter turn when
it's you know, there's a lot of illness going around
in our area. That's a tricky one to meet the

(02:01):
ninety percent target. But also the chronic absences in our
area are usually at the root of them are really
really complex situations, and that's going to be honest. I
think that also needs wrap around from other services, not
just the attendance of this to make that target.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Because those I didn't realize this. Three percent of a
school's allocation can be spent on stuff like uniforms or transport.
You know, if there are if there are economic reasons
of kids not attending school, we can actually fix that.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
You can fix it short term, but you're not going
to be able to continue that funding long term. So
that would be where you would have Kevin other avenue
or hope that the parents would you know, it's a
kick start. I mean, certainly, I think that's a really
excellent part of the contract that we've got the flexibility

(02:57):
to do that. But there will be you know, there's
downsides to that as well, because what happens once that
funding for that child stops. We can't continue to pay
that parents for the rest of these full time So
one hopes that they get back to school and back
into a pattern of attendance is what the hope is.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Kathy Chammers A Charmer's forgiven me very great to have
you on the program. That's Green Meadows intermediate principle and
lead principle of the Monneto Attendance Service. For more from
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