More than 60 per cent of NSW public high school students missed at least four weeks of class in 2022, the worst attendance level on record.
While sick days due to COVID and flu cases were behind the falling attendance levels, some in the education sector say the latest figures are part of a bigger trend of student disengagement and schools are now offering late starting times for students who spend much of the night gaming as a short-term measure to re-engage them.
Home-school liaison officer Alexandra Southgate who works for the NSW Department of Education.Credit: Peter Rae.
Home-school liaison officer Alexandra Southgate, who works for the NSW Education Department across a number of public schools in Sydney’s west, said children with diagnosed digital addictions or sleep disorders were allowed to start their school day late if they needed to sleep in until mid-morning.
Particularly for diagnosed sleep disorders, she said, “as a short-term strategy, that is something which can be adopted and is adopted”.
“It means that we’ve got a child, [who] is really struggling to sleep, but they’re up by 11am or they can get to school by 11.30, then sure, over the short term, we might put a part-day exemption in place for that child.”
She said that exemption was put in place for a month but was important for schools to understand the deeper reasons why a child might be struggling to sleep.
“It could be that children are becoming addicted to a digital device because it takes them into a world that means that they don’t have to negotiate the problems they’re experiencing in their real life,” she said.
In NSW, only 48.7 per cent of all primary public schoolchildren went to school more than 90 per cent of the time last year, according to Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority data.
When it came to high school, that figure fell to 36 per cent, the data showed – almost 20 percentage points lower than the 2021 attendance level of 55.4 per cent of children coming to class regularly.
A surge in illness and widespread flooding forcing schools to close was the reason behind the sharp drop in students attending at the highest levels.
In private schools, attendance levels also dropped to their lowest level, as just 57.1 per cent of primary school students attended school more than 90 per cent of the time. For private high school students from years 7 to 10, that figure was 52 per cent.
Of Catholic primary students, 55.4 per cent attended school more than 90 per cent of the time and 44.4 per cent of Catholic high school students attended more than 90 per cent of the time.
Lobby group Independent Schools Australia told a parliamentary inquiry into the rise of school refusal in December that teachers were offering “shorter school days and extended breaks” to students in a bid to at least get students to show.
“Learning from home has become popular for some students following COVID-19 lockdowns. Independent schools report that some families now expect schools to provide learning online opportunities for their child experiencing school refusal,” the submission said.
Some students who are staying up late gaming and chronically missing school are being told they can have shorter school hours just so they return to class.Credit: iStock, supplied
Independent Schools Australia chief executive Carolyn Grantskalns said she knew anecdotally that private schools were making adjustments to boost attendance.
“Helping students transition back to full-time attendance is an issue that schools take very seriously,” she said.
Psychologist and NSW Parents’ Council president Rose Cantali said she had worked with dozens of students whose principals had allowed students to attend school later in the day.
“The schools let them come in at 10 or 11 o’clock – they believe it is in the best interest of the child,” she said.
She said allowing students to have a late start was only done for a short period of time. “It doesn’t work with some but does with others; it tends to give children more of an idea of what they get away with,” she said.
She also noted that the number of families home-schooling doubled in just four years from 5698 in 2018 to 12,149 last year. This could be concerning as not every child nor parent was suited to that.
“Sometimes I have noted that that’s not in the best interest of the child,” she said.
Deputy President of the NSW Secondary Principals′ Council Christine Del Gallo said the issue of students staying up late on devices had been developing long before the pandemic.
“There are a lot of children in their bedrooms on social media until the early hours of the morning,” she said.
“COVID didn’t cause that, it was happening before COVID, it continues to be a problem for some students about how they manage their phone.”
The Diocese of Parramatta, which has 80 Catholic schools in western Sydney, has a dedicated interdisciplinary attendance team of psychologists, social workers, specialist teachers and family liaison officers to find ways to get children back into classrooms – including driving students to school.
“This includes working with families to identify obstacles to attending school and making appropriate adjustments to student learning to support engagement,” a spokeswoman said.
“In some cases, the team supports families by transporting students to school.”
A spokesman for the NSW Department of Education said it also had a home-school liaison program.
“Staff in the program work alongside school staff, the student and their family to improve attendance,” he said.
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