This fact sheet was originally published 29 April 2024.

Summary

This fact sheet provides an overview of student attendance of NSW Government schools from Kindergarten to Year 12 in Semester 1, 2023. It contains information on different cohorts of students, including observations on student attendance by multiple education levels, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status and geolocations.

There are two different measures of student attendance: attendance rate and attendance level. The attendance rate is the percentage of days students attended school, compared to student enrolled days. The attendance level is the proportion of students attending 90% or more of the time. This measure was introduced in 2018 and is more variable than the attendance rate as it is binary (that is, a student attending less than 90% of the time or a student attending 90% or more of the time). For most students, their attendance rate is concentrated around 90%. Therefore, a small shift in their attendance will likely mean changes in their attendance position to below / at or above the 90% threshold, resulting in a larger variation in the attendance level.

The attendance rates and levels in this fact sheet are different to the nationally published My School figures due to the inclusion of Kindergarten, Year 11 and Year 12 students. The attendance calculation methodology was revised in 2020 to align with the third edition of ACARA’s ‘National standards for student attendance data and reporting’, differing to the target calculation methodology developed in 2018. The nationally published My School figures include data for students in Year 1 to Year 10.

While there were no COVID-19 lockdowns or learning from home periods in Semester 1 2023, the prevalence of COVID-19 and general illness in the community continued to cause large variability in attendance data. All students, staff and visitors were encouraged to remain at home if unwell, and only attend school when symptom-free. Absence reasons are analysed in this fact sheet to explain increases in student attendance. In this fact sheet, student attendance data for 2020 is excluded due to the impact of COVID-19. Please refer to Effects of COVID-19 on attendance during Semester 1 2020 for more information.