School Times, Attendance and Absences

Arriving at School on Time

Punctuality is important to children because:

• Being on time displays good manners;
• Being late interrupts the class and disrupts the learning of others;
• It may embarrass the child to be late and impact their readiness to learn;
• The child may miss something vital if they are late.

School Times

Students should not arrive to school before 8:30am, as there is no supervision. The school premises are strictly out of bounds after school hours, during school holidays and over the weekends.

Please note the above times are not relevant to kindergarten and pre-primary students as they have their own class schedule.

Attendance & Absences

It is a legal requirement for children to attend school every school day. Establishing and maintaining positive attendance of above 90% for all students has been clearly linked to school achievement and success in future studies.

As such, it is important that absences are kept to a minimum and vacations are taken only during school holiday time. 

The school also has an SMS service that sends a text message to the parent/guardian of the student who is absent from school. The parent/guardian can then send a response back to the school explaining the reason for their child’s absence.

• If a child is absent or late for any reason, a written note or verbal reason must be provided to the school, via the schools sms service, phone, email, or website ‘Absence’ Link.
• When students arrive late for school they must sign in and be issued with a late pass through the school office. The late pass must be given to their class teacher.
• If parents need to request to withdraw students during the school day, they must first attend the school office to fill out a leave pass for partial absence, before collecting their child from class.
• Notes will be sent home for unexplained absences to be returned to school with a reason for the absence.

Students are deemed to be at risk by the Department of Education if their attendance is below 90%.

If your child attends 90% of the time, we regard them as attending regularly; however they could be missing:

• 1 day a fortnight;
• 1 week a term;
• 4 weeks a year;
• 1 year by the end of Year 9;
• 1 semester between Year 8 & Year 12.

If your child attends 80% of the time, we regard them in the at-risk category as they could be missing:

• 1 day a week;
• 2 weeks a term;
• 8 weeks a year;
• 1 year by the end of Year 4;
• 2 years by the end of Year 8;
• 3 years by the end of Year 12;
• 1 year between Year 8 & Year 11.

If your child attends 60% of the time, we regard them at significant risk as they could be missing:

• 2 days a week;
• 4 weeks a term;
• 16 weeks each year;
• 1 year by the end of Semester 1, Year 3;
• 2 years by the end of Year 5;
• 3 years by the end of Semester 1, Year 8;
• 4 years by the end of Year 10;
• 5 years by the end of Semester 1, Year 12;
• 2 years between Year 8 & Year 12.