This bulletin was originally published 18 October 2019.

Overview

Student attendance has been demonstrated to be linked to student academic outcomes, although the nature of the link is complex. CESE’s Government School Student Attendance 2018 bulletin summarises attendance rates by:

• student level of education
• remoteness
• Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students
• proportion of students attending 90% or more of the time
• distribution of students' attendance
• impact of National standards on NSW government schools’ attendance rates.

CESE’s analysis of Semester 1 2018 attendance data indicates that the average attendance rate for NSW government schools decreased to 91.4%, mainly as a result of the change in reporting. As part of the process of making NSW government schools’ attendance rates consistent with the 'National standards for student attendance data reporting', for the first time in 2018, NSW included partial absences and accounted for student mobility in the attendance rate calculations. Due to changes in the calculation methods, 2018 data is not directly comparable to previous years.