Attendance and punctuality are important. Students should attend school every day and be punctual to school and all classes. A clear explanation is required for all absences and lateness. If you know your child will be late to school, please advise us before 9.15am. This will prevent raising undue concern and will save unnecessary emails/phone calls to determine the whereabouts of your child.

Students who are very late to class may be recorded as absent. The student must sign in at the library (Senior Campus), or Main Reception (Junior Campus) as soon as they arrive. This is for health and safety reasons, so we know who is/is not onsite at all times.

If your child feels unwell or is injured at school, please remind them, in the first instance, to come to the Health Centre. This ensures that students are assessed and well-supported whilst at school. The Nurse will work with the student to assess their condition and the best course of action, e.g. returning to class, resting in sick bay and/or calling a parent or caregiver to discuss or collect their child. Students are not to pre-arrange collection due to sickness via email or phone. The Health Centre team or administrative staff will deal with this. This is for safety and correct marking of attendance.

We ask parents to assist us in having their child follow the correct procedures regarding sickness at school.

Where possible, please inform the Attendance Officer (Absences) prior to collecting your child via email or by logging an absence in the Kamar Portal or by using our school app.

The student must sign out at the library (Senior Campus), or Main Reception (Primary Campus). This is for health and safety reasons, so we know who is/is not onsite at all times. Please note that students signing in/out doesn’t update our attendance records. A parent/caregiver still needs to notify the Attendance Officer.

If the student returns to school, he/she must sign back in.

Signing in/out using the Vistabs at school, doesn’t update your child’s attendance. A parent/caregiver will still need to notify the Attendance Officer with confirmation that the student is late or was allowed to leave and why. Ideally, this should be done prior to the student’s lateness/leaving. The student must sign in/out on the Vistab. This is for health and safety reasons, so we know who is/is not onsite at all times.

While it is nice to inform a teacher of your child’s absence, they are unable to amend your child’s attendance. If you are wanting to send your child’s teacher a courtesy message, then just cc in [email protected], so that the Attendance Officer can make the necessary adjustments – this is another way of reporting your child’s absence other than using the Kamar Portal or our school App.

If an absence for sickness is five or more days, a medical certificate is required. An absence of more than five days for sickness without a medical certificate may be recorded as Explained, Unjustified. The school can also request a medical certificate where there is consistent and/or intermittent illness.

If your child misses a lot of school because of mental health or physical health challenges, he/she may be eligible to get help from the Northern Regional Health School.

We strongly encourage you to make personal appointments (non-medical) outside of school time, as while these appointments may be explained, they are not justified by the Ministry of Education. Please note that being absent from school due to a medical appointment is a justified reason to be absent from school, but when possible, our preference is that these appointments are also outside of school hours. We ask that parents notify the school of the appointment in advance and that students sign in and out at the library (Senior Campus), and Main Reception (Junior Campus) if there is a need to leave school during the day.

The Ministry of Education does not condone holidays to be taken during term time. The MOE regard such leave as parent-condoned truancy. The school strongly encourages parents to take holidays during the regular term breaks. No accommodation for missing lessons or scheduled NCEA assessments is promised without notice so it is important that the application for leave for planned absences is submitted as early as possible, unless under urgent circumstances (e.g. bereavement).

4 or more days absence reasons must be emailed to:

Years 1-10:

1-3 days of absence is to be emailed to [email protected]

4 or more days of absence is to be emailed to:

• Primary School: Cristal McKoy – [email protected]
• Middle Years: Vanessa Gatman – [email protected]

Years 11-13

All absence requests are to be emailed to:
Senior School: Colin Thomson – [email protected]

The student should speak with or email whomever it was that they had the meeting with as they will be the only person who can confirm their presence at the meeting. It would also be good to CC in the Attendance Officer, so that they are also aware that the student is following this up.

If students are marked absent for a period throughout the day and we have not heard from you, you will be contacted by email or phone call to advise you of the absence in a timely manner. Please reply to this with the details of the absence.

For Senior Campus students only:

Our procedures emphasise individual student responsibility. If your child was in class and present, they will need to speak to their classroom teacher to get their attendance corrected in the first instance. The teacher is the only one who can change this, as they are the only person who can confirm that the student was present. This should be done as soon as possible to avoid detentions being issued for unexplained absences. If there was a reliever for that class, the student must send an email to their regular classroom teacher who will be able to amend their attendance if applicable. If the teacher is away for an extended period, then the student can contact their Dean.

There are two categories of absences: justified and unjustified.

What you are able to see as a parent/caregiver on the “KWS Portal” is a simplified and condensed version of what we have access to as staff. Unjustified absence is a grouping of several Ministry of Education attendance codes. An unjustified absence is an absence that is either unexplained or explained, but the explanation is not within the school policy as an acceptable reason for the student to be away from school. The decision on whether this explained absence is ‘justified’ or ‘unjustified’ will be determined by the Ministry of Education guidelines and the school’s attendance policy. Sometimes this causes distress from parents, caregivers and students. However, the explanation for the absence is accepted by the school as the reason for the absence and we are not passing judgement or criticism.

Put simply, the reason does not fit within the school’s policy as a justifiable reason to take the student off school even though the parent may consider the absence was justified and may have provided a written explanation. Please note, that very few absence reasons are considered “Justified” as per the School Policy and the Ministry of Education. If you’re interested you can look further into this via this link -School Attendance Codes