Summary

School attendance is a key measure of student engagement and wellbeing. Previous research has also found that it is strongly linked with student attainment. This paper describes the nature of this relationship across a range of year levels and attainment outcomes, and investigates whether this relationship looks different for different student groups or different types of absences.

Key findings

The report finds:

• The overall relationship between attendance and attainment can be best described by a straight line, especially at attendance rates over about 70 percent.
• The first 1.5 days of justified absence across Term 2 is the only ‘safe’ level of non-attendance (where there is a minimal impact on a student’s attainment) we could find evidence for.
• This implies that any other absence from school is associated with substantially lower attainment - that is, every day matters.
• The first few unjustified absences in a term are associated with the largest drops in attainment.
• Attendance is more strongly related to attainment at higher year levels (particularly NCEA), and for mathematics, as opposed to reading.
• For some student groups (like students in low decile schools), attendance appears to be particularly important.