Attendance

Attendance at Peninsula Primary School

Regular attendance is essential for your child’s learning, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. From Term 1 2026, all schools are required to have an Attendance Management Plan to support students to attend regularly.

At Peninsula Primary School, we work closely with whānau to ensure every child is at school, engaged, and ready to learn.

Our Approach (STAR)

We follow the Stepped Attendance Response (STAR) framework.

This means:

We notice early patterns of absence
We work alongside whānau to understand what’s happening
We provide support before concerns become serious
We involve additional services if needed
Our goal is always to support students to attend regularly and feel connected to school.

Daily Attendance Expectations
School starts at 8:55am
Please notify the school before 9:00am if your child is absent
Unexplained absences are followed up by 9:30am
All attendance is recorded in our school system (Hero)

How We Respond to Absences
We use a stepped approach depending on attendance patterns:

• Early Stage
  Text or call home to check on absence
  Teacher awareness and monitoring
• 
  Building Concern
  Increased communication with whānau
  Monitoring patterns of absence
• 
  Ongoing Concern
  Senior Leadership Team (SLT) involvement
  Whānau hui to discuss support
  Identification of any barriers
• 
  Significant Concern
  Formal support plan developed
  Referral to Attendance Services if needed
  Ongoing monitoring and support

Our focus is always on supporting improvement, not blame.

 

Supporting Attendance

We understand that there can be barriers to attendance. We will work with you to support your child, including:

* Learning support or wellbeing support
* Adjusted programmes or transitions
* Connecting with external services 

How Whānau Can Help
* Let us know early if your child is absent
* Support regular routines (sleep, morning readiness)
* Talk to us if there are challenges—we’re here to help

 Ministry of Education Attendance Codes

 

Examples:

(M) Medical Absences - Justified
Student is at home, or in hospital, because of illness or other medical reasons. A medical certificate may be requested for prolonged illness. E.g. absent for more than three days

Please note: COVID is now coded as a regular medical absence. We appreciate that whānau will be observing isolation but COVID is no longer coded differently. The rule of thumb is if you are too sick to attend school, please stay home. 

(J) Bereavement and/or Exceptional Family Circumstances
We acknowledge the valuable time required during bereavement and/or exceptional family circumstances. We greatly appreciate your communication in letting us know what challenges you and your family may be facing. Pending the information we receive, we can code an absence of this type for up to 5 days as J (justified). This is judged on a case by case basis. Should the absence require more than 5 days, from the 6th day onwards, the absence will be coded as E (Explained and considered unjustified).

(D) Appointments
If your child needs to leave school for an appointment or arrives late afterwards, we ask that they attend either the morning or afternoon roll call. If they miss both, the absence will be marked as "M" for medical.

If possible, please provide the school with confirmation of the appointment (such as an email or phone call) to help us update your child's absence record and confirm communication with whānau.

(Q) Sports Tournament (Internal and External)
We value sports opportunities for young people and have different criteria for marking absences related to them. For in-school events, absences are marked as Q (Justified). If a student participates in a national tournament representing their country, the absence is marked as J (Justified), with proof required. For club competitions, the absence is marked as E (Explained but unjustified). If a student competes overseas and represents their country, the absence is J (Justified), but if they are not representing their country, it’s marked G (Overseas Trip – Unjustified).

(G) Overseas Trip/Family Trip during Term Time
According to the Ministry guidelines, family trips during school term are not considered a valid reason for missing school. Because of this, we need to mark your child’s absence as G (Overseas Trip). This means we understand why your child was absent, but it doesn’t meet the rules for a justified absence. If it is for a Cultural Event in New Zealand or Overseas, this may be considered as J (Justified).

Truancy
If a student misses school and we don’t hear from the family in advance or follow our usual procedures for reporting an absence, the student will be marked as "T" (Truant). If a student misses more than five days in a row without any explanation, our Deputy Principals will refer the case to the Attendance Services, who will follow up to make sure the student returns to school. This service helps students and whānau improve attendance.

We can change the "Truancy" mark later if needed, but the best way to avoid this is for families to contact the school in advance or on the day of the absence.

Examples of absences that are not valid can include, but are not limited to:

“My child did not want to do swimming sports.”
“My child wants to stay home.” 
“We went to the shops.”
“We had a day out at the beach.”
"My child did not want to get dressed."
To make sure the student’s attendance record is correct, we need clear and valid reasons for any absences.