Remote School Attendance Strategy

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The Remote School Attendance Strategy is about school attendance officers working with schools, families, parents, and community organisations to ensure all children go to school every day.

Getting children to school is the Government’s number one priority for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families. That’s because going to school and being at school every day gives every child the best chance for a good start in life.

RSAS is operating in 77 schools across 74 communities with RSAS teams tailoring approaches to local contexts and needs, with input from the local community.

The Remote School Attendance Strategy started in Term 1, 2014, and is being implemented in partnership with communities and schools in locations in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. It is designed to be driven by the community to suit local needs.

Many children in remote communities are not going to school every day, with attendance in some communities very low. It is just as important for children living in remote Australia to go to school every day as it is for those in the city. We need to increase attendance rates in remote schools so all children get a good education.

The Remote School Attendance Strategy works with local providers to employ school attendance supervisors and school attendance officers to help kids get to school.

School attendance supervisors and officers may have different names in different places, but together they make up the school attendance teams in each community. These teams will work with schools to help parents and families make sure kids have what they need to go to school each day.

Team members are local people from the community. They may be mums, dads, caregivers, aunties, uncles or grandparents who want to help kids in the community get to school.

School attendance teams work closely with teachers, parents and the community to develop a community plan to identify ways to ensure all children in the community go to school every day.

They can help with things like:

Talking to children and families about the importance of regular school attendance.
Working with families where children are not attending school to find out why and what can be done to help them get there.
Providing practical support like driving children to school or helping to organise school lunches, uniforms, homework and after-school care.
Working with the school to monitor attendance and follow up on student absences.
Celebrating and rewarding improved attendance.

All school attendance team members will obtain working-with-children checks and participate in work-related learning activities.

Visit indigenous.gov.auor search #SchoolEveryDay on social media to see stories about how school has helped people be the best they can be! And keep up to date with all the latest Remote School Attendance Strategy news by subscribing to the monthly eNewsletter. Visit the eNewsletters archive for past issues.