2011-2023 Student attendance rate by individual government school

Metadata for IAC0396 covering the data table released for calendar years 2011 to 2023
 

• The attendance rate is defined as the number of actual full-time equivalent student days attended by full-time students in Years 1–10 in Semester 1 as a percentage of the total number of possible student-days attended in Semester 1. Figures are aligned with the National Report on Schooling and the My School website.

• Validated attendance data is collected in weeks 1-5 of Term 4.

• Schools for Specific Purposes (SSPs) are only included from 2021. Prior to this SSP attendance data was not collected centrally.

• Data is suppressed "sp" for schools where student numbers are below the reporting threshold.
• Data is not available "na" for senior secondary schools or other schools where no students were enrolled in Years 1-10.
• Blank cells indicate no students were enrolled at the school that census year or the school was out of scope for attendance reporting.

Notes for specific calendar years
 

• In 2010, the school leaving age was raised and impacted attendance rates for students particularly in Year 11 and 12.   
• From 2014, CESE introduced anomaly checks to ensure data was complete and of a high quality.
• From 2015 onward, approved extended family holidays were recorded as absences, which led to a fall in attendance rates.   
• Prior to 2018, school level attendance data was manually collected from schools. From 2018 onward, student-level attendance data was available centrally for all schools.    
• In 2018 NSW government schools implemented the national standards for student attendance data reporting. This resulted in a fall in attendance rates for most schools due to the inclusion of partial absences over 120 minutes (calculated as a proportion of a nominal 6-hour day) accounting for student mobility in the calculation. Data from 2018 is not directly comparable to previous years.   
• 2020 Semester 1 attendance data is not provided because students were encouraged to learn from home for several weeks in Semester 1, which lead to inconsistencies in the way attendance was being recorded at schools. Please refer to the factsheet on The effects of COVID-19 on attendance during Semester 1 2020 for more information.
• From 2020, support students in mainstream schools (i.e. ungraded students) were recorded against their grade of enrolment for the first time, to be more aligned with national counting rules. Care should be taken when comparing with previous years as enrolments by grades will be higher than previous years.
• 2021 Semester 2 attendance data is not provided due to extensive COVID-related disruptions during this period.
• 2021 data is not comparable to previous years due to:
  • Changes to calculations rules to align with the revised 2020 National Standards for student attendance data reporting: 
    • including the final week of Term 2
    • treating partial absences over 120 minutes as a half day absence (instead of their actual value, calculated as a proportion of a nominal 6-hour day)
    • changes to calculation rules to align with ACARA’s national standards (version 3)
  • The continued impact of COVID-19, although there were no statewide lockdowns imposed
  • Changes the way attendance is transferred into the department's centralised data warehouse, which significantly improved data quality.
  • Please refer to 2021 Semester 1 student attendance factsheet for more information.
• While there were no COVID-19 lockdowns or learning from home periods in 2022 the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community was much greater than in 2021 and it continued to cause large variability in attendance data.
• Attendance in 2022 was also impacted by floods and influenza outbreaks.