Our Purpose: Why Attendance Matters at Shirley Boys' High School
At Shirley Boys’ High School, Ngā Tama o Ōruapaeroa, our core mission is to support our ākonga to achieve their full potential, both in their academic studies and in their personal well-being. These two areas are fundamentally linked, and both depend on regular attendance. As such, students are required to be at school each day it is open, unless prevented from attending by sickness or any other circumstances beyond their control.
Reporting absence to the school
Absences can be communicated in a number of ways.
- You can telephone or email to the attendance officer first thing in the morning on 3757057 or email [email protected].
- If you have the Shirley Boys’ High School app on your mobile phone, you can report absence through this too.
- Alternatively, you can send in a message through the portal on the school’s website by logging in with your son’s name (e.g. joe.bloggs) and caregivers password.
If an absence is not reported in one of these ways, an absence note must be handed to the student’s Form Tutor on the day they return to school. In some circumstances we reserve the right to request a signed parental note or medical certificate for absences. Three days consecutive absence will require a medical certificate on return.
Dental and medical appointments should not occur during school time. If a school day appointment is unavoidable, it is expected that a typical appointment will not exceed two hours.
If a student has been absent without explanation for one or more periods on any given day, a text message will be sent to parents/caregivers notifying them of the absence at the end of that day.
Applications for leave must be made in writing in advance to the Headmaster.
What else can I be doing to support my son?
Speak to your son about attendance
Take the time to communicate the importance of attendance to your son and question him about any unusual attendance data you receive.
Contact the school should you have concerns about his attendance. Your son’s Form Tutor is the person to make initial contact with when you have concerns.
Familiarise yourself with how to log into the school portal.
Here you can access your son’s daily attendance data and report the reasons for any absence to the school. The link to this portal can be found here on the school website under the “Useful Links” tab on the homepage.
Check your son's Weekly Attendance Report
On a weekly basis (every Friday evening) the school sends out a weekly summary of your son’s attendance to the email address you supplied us when he enrolled.
Get in the habit of checking this email account for this information and notify us should you ever change email accounts so we can amend our records.
Shirley Boys’ High School, our parents, and our whānau share a set of responsibilities outlined in the Education and Training Act 2020. By implementing the Ministry of Education’s Stepped Attendance Response (STAR) framework, which involves a series of escalating actions as a student accumulates absences, we can ensure every student has the opportunity to succeed.
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