Absenteeism, bad behaviour compound poor school performance

Just under one in 10 – 7 per cent – reported not feeling safe in their classroom.

“It’s really not good enough that we still have teachers struggling to deliver best practice in many schools,” said Jordana Hunter, education program director with the Grattan Institute. “We’re not going to solve the persistent equity gaps that PISA and NAPLAN point to without making sure teachers have the training to be their best.”

A report by Kirsten Hancock, whose 2019 Churchill fellowship took her to New Zealand and America to study growing levels of school absenteeism around the world, was released recently by The Smith Family.

Australian absenteeism rates were declining before COVID-19 and have escalated since, as has the proportion of young people leaving school before they complete year 12.

In 2017, 15.2 per cent of students didn’t finish high school, with the figure rising to 19.5 per cent in 2022.

“In 2022, average absence rates stood at 12.2 per cent for primary students and 15.3 per cent for secondary students, equating to the loss of up to six weeks school a year,” Ms Hancock’s report says.

Significantly, around half of students in years 7-10 and 45 per cent in years 1-6 miss over 10 per cent of the school year.

Ms Hancock found that punitive approaches to absenteeism rarely worked and were often counterproductive.

“We have to deal with what we’ve got in front of us, and how to deal with it rather than thinking about how do we get it back to the way it was,” Ms Hancock said.

“It’s not helpful to think about how do we put the genie back in the bottle.”

Her report recommends a multi-tiered approach that includes schools using early warning systems to identify kids at risk of falling into a pattern of absenteeism and access to health and social services.

Anne Hampshire, head of research and advocacy with The Smith Family, said in-school factors such as teacher quality and curriculum, and out-of-school factors such as family environment, had powerful influences of children’s educational outcomes.

The long-term consequences of absenteeism and disengagement with school are dire, including intergenerational poverty, she said.

“We need to make sure our schools are operating within a service system whereby if children have got, for example, health and disability issues, they get the support from the health services that they need,” Ms Hampshire said.

“Disadvantaged schools can get absolutely swamped by the range of needs. There is important evidence that shows parental engagement in a child’s education is a bigger predictor of educational outcomes than socioeconomic background.

“How do we do that with the best intent and sense of the families we work with?”

Australia has been identified as having some of the worst levels of classroom behaviour in the OECD.

A Senate report released last week called time on poor student behaviour in classrooms, arguing that a ground-up approach is needed, starting with how new teachers are taught how to teach and manage their students.

The Senate report recommends the creation of a “behaviour curriculum” so that teachers clearly understand what their students should – and should not – be doing.

It said evidence-based teaching practices, such as explicit instruction, were closely aligned with better behaved kids, as were traditional classrooms with desks in rows that faced the teacher at the front.