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Speaker 1: One in four of our schools need more help getting

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Speaker 1: kids to attend class. Data from the Ministry of Educations

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Speaker 1: identified about six hundred schools struggling to get eighty percent

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Speaker 1: of students attending more than ninety percent of the time,

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Speaker 1: which is the government target they want to hit by

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Speaker 1: twenty thirty. Leanne or Tenny is the Principals Federation president,

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Speaker 1: joins me. Now, Leanne, good morning, Mordena. You say this

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Speaker 1: is not about something the schools can control. This is

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Speaker 1: about other stuff. What other stuff?

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Speaker 2: Oh, look, let's just start with the fact that we'd

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Speaker 2: like to see every single child attend school every day.

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Speaker 2: Principals absolutely agree that we need to focus on attendance,

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Speaker 2: but understanding the trends and why children away from school

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Speaker 2: is something that we just need to really look at closely.

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Speaker 2: There's two types of non attendants. So you've got you

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Speaker 2: justified and you're unjustified. And unfortunately the data that you're

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Speaker 2: you're you know, you've just quoted includes both. So you've

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Speaker 2: got you justified. Where kids are away from school for

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Speaker 2: family reasons, death in the family, the children are sick,

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Speaker 2: and let's be honest, this winter has not been helpful

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Speaker 2: and we've had a lot of kids away with sickness.

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Speaker 2: We've got mental health up as well. Those are justified reasons.

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Speaker 2: Unjustified that's a much smaller group of students and that

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Speaker 2: includes turureancy which is very low. And then you've got trensience,

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Speaker 2: which is what you're just alerting to the things that

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Speaker 2: schools can't really control on their own. There as are

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Speaker 2: kids shifting around the country for social housing rentals, you know,

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Speaker 2: moving to live with family. And then you've got five

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Speaker 2: percent of unemployment, so you've got families juggling to find

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Speaker 2: a job, so they're moving a lot to find work.

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Speaker 2: So although the data is showing that we've got high

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Speaker 2: and non attendance, there are reasons for it and we

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Speaker 2: need to look deeper into the data otherwise where it's

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Speaker 2: a distortion of the reality.

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Speaker 1: So we got like what forty two percent of students

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Speaker 1: not attending regularly and do you know what proportioned justified

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Speaker 1: versus and unjustified.

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Speaker 2: Well, this is what the data is that is coming

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Speaker 2: out from you know on this, you know seamore, a

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Speaker 2: Minister Seymour is saying, you know, we're looking at it

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Speaker 2: on a weekly basis at a school every school. We'll

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Speaker 2: be looking at that data and we'll be determining which

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Speaker 2: is justified, which is unjustified, and they'll be working with

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Speaker 2: those families where the first of all the justified reasons

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Speaker 2: kids are sick. So you know we've now got health

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Speaker 2: guidelines out, so ont of me staying to parents, you know,

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Speaker 2: as a as a child well enough to come to school,

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Speaker 2: I think that.

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Speaker 1: Man, what about do you tell are you a principal

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Speaker 1: of a school?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I am.

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Speaker 1: What what's in yours? What's the percenter's breakdown in your school?

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Speaker 1: Justified unjustified?

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Speaker 2: It changes on a weekly basis. I can't tell you

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Speaker 2: overall average and tree. Yes, we are looking at trends

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Speaker 2: yet what the tree is telling you? So we're looking

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Speaker 2: at around about sixty five to seventy percent. I'm in

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Speaker 2: a load decil school. We've got children.

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Speaker 1: Who justified or unjustified sixty five to seventy.

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Speaker 2: Five, there would be both that would be including both.

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Speaker 2: As we're looking at the unjustified reasons, you know the

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Speaker 2: children that are are way because you're scoring out, we're

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Speaker 2: probably looking about six percent. We're looking at six percent

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Speaker 2: of unjustified. That's really small and I would say that's

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Speaker 2: the same across the country of unjustified to say that

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Speaker 2: parents are keeping children home because they just are too lazy,

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Speaker 2: and that's the quote of sane. It's just not fear.

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Speaker 2: That is not the reality. There's are so many other

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Speaker 2: reasons and lee in.

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Speaker 1: The twenty to thirty So you've got like what twenty

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Speaker 1: to thirty percent of kids who are not attending school

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Speaker 1: for justified reasons. That seems like quite a lot to

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Speaker 1: be sick, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, there's been lots of reporting on

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Speaker 2: illness this winter. We've had schools have had clothes because

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Speaker 2: they had staff who are sick, and you know, they're

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Speaker 2: sharing the bags. And this is the biggest concern we've

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Speaker 2: had around these health guidelines. Parents are sending their kids

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Speaker 2: to school sick or otherwise trying really desperately to meet

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Speaker 2: the demands of the school. Send your kids to school,

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Speaker 2: and as a result, we're sharing the bugs. Kids, Whole

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Speaker 2: classrooms are going down with winter bugs. We've had schools

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Speaker 2: who've reported that, you know, they've got a very high

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Speaker 2: number of staff away.

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Speaker 1: So thanks a lot of sick kids, Leanne, appreciate your time.

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Speaker 2: This morning.

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Speaker 1: Leanne attended the Principals Federation President. For more from Early

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