New Zealand’s truancy crisis: How to keep your child’s attendance up at school this year

Parents need to make sure they've organised themselves as well as their kids to get them through the school gate with limited stress. Photo / Getty Images

As families return from their summer holidays, trading barbecues and late nights down at the beach for prepping lunchboxes and fishing out school uniforms, the 2023 school year will see a refocus on what’s been a growing issue for our children’s education: truancy.

Since 2015, New Zealand’s school attendance rates have been in decline, becoming even worse in the Covid years.

As of June last year, fewer than 60 per cent of children, across all deciles, ethnicities and regions, were regularly attending school. Regular attendance is considered as being at school at least nine days out of 10 in a fortnight. The most notable decline in attendance fell among primary and intermediate school children.

And while the issue of truancy is complex and requires a multi-pronged approach from government agencies, schools and their communities, Reset magazine spoke to Family Coach Sheridan Eketone from Parenting Place about what parents can do to help keep their kids in school and engaged in learning.

Firstly, Eketone acknowledges that “not every kid loves school and some kids enter the school year with a little bit of anxiety”.

She says this is often around things like “who their teacher’s going to be. Or they may know who their teacher will be and that they’re not going to be in a class with their friends.”

So, from the outset of the school year, Eketone says preparing your child for what things might look like will put them in good stead for settling in well and wanting to be at school.

“Our kids really love to know what’s happening next and I think it’s setting up a little bit of a rehearsal the week or so before they go back to school. So whether your kid’s starting high school and you go and catch the bus with them on the route they’ll take, or turn up to the primary school, have a good walk around, find their room and have a peek through the windows - all of that stuff just gives our kids a sense of less anxiety from the what ifs and more certainty around what’s going to happen.”

From here, establishing routines and a sense of preparedness ahead of each school day is crucial, says Eketone.

Setting things up the night before will help your child feel ready and know what the deal is in the morning: that they’re going to school.

She points to an example from a colleague whose mother would set the table for the next day’s breakfast every night before she went to bed.

“Something about that consistency of preparing a space really made her feel safe as a kid,” shares Eketone.

“Having predictability and routines and rituals is really helpful for kids to feel safe. It is a part that we can play to alleviate any stress that might be attributed [to going to school] ... a kid that is feeling anxious about school and wakes up and can’t find their uniform and already doesn’t want to go to school - if we’re maybe just prompting them the night before, ‘Hey, where’s your uniform? Maybe have it at the end of your bed’, or if they’re a younger child, ‘Let’s choose your outfit and let’s put it at the end of your bed for tomorrow.’”

It’s also key to make sure you, as a parent, are organised and ready to go in the mornings, too.

“A less stressed parent creates a less stressed child, which gives them more capacity to make it through the school gates without too much trouble.”

When it comes to the reasons a child may not want to go to school, these can be myriad and varied.

From bullying to difficulty learning or engaging with the curriculum, Eketone says a parent’s role is to “listen to our kids” and be prepared to bridge the gap between them and the school to resolve their issues.

“It is the connection and the relationship with the parent that will get them through this,” she says.

“So keeping open lines of communication and listening to your kids. I think sometimes as parents we jump on to punishments without understanding or being curious about what’s led them to get to that point.

“We need to listen to our kids. We need to work with them. Obviously we want to have them in school, but that’s where we may need to step into the gap and be that bridge between the child and the school to make it better or to get to the bottom of it.

“There should be an open door policy that you can go and talk to the teacher. And then I would also expect that if that isn’t fruitful, then you can escalate it to someone a little bit more senior in the school.”

This year, the Government begins working towards an attendance target of 70 per cent of students regularly attending school by 2024. This involves rolling out a new Attendance and Engagement Strategy which outlines 13 actions to support kids returning to classrooms. These include a campaign highlighting parents’ responsibilities in getting their children to school and clarifying expectations for schools to prioritise student attendance.