Data Collections Student Attendance (STATS)

The provision of student attendance data is a requirement under the Australian Education Regulation 2013 (the Regulation). Student attendance data is one of the measurements of schooling in Australia, agreed by all state, territory and the Commonwealth Ministers of Education.

Non-government schools in Australia that receive Australian Government recurrent grant funding for their students. Approved Authorities determine whether they or the individual schools/locations (campuses) will submit the data to the collection. Schools that are part of a system of schools should seek advice from their system office.

To complete Student Attendance reporting, you will need to get the required enrolment and student attendance information either from your school technology system or by calculating the required information from student records.

The Key Dates for STATS in the Downloads section on this page contains the dates and activities for STATS.

Student Attendance has two reporting periods:

Semester 1 (usually, Term 1 and 2): The period between the first school day of the year and the last school day of Semester 1.

Term 3: The period between the first school day of Term 3 and the last school day of Term 3.

Include:

• full-time students at school location in Year 1 through to, and including, Year 10
• any ungraded students who are in the typical age group for students in years 1 to 10

Exclude:

• Foundation (Year 1 minus 1) and earlier programs
• Years 11 and 12
• Part-time students
• Distance education students
• Student is no longer enrolled at the School. This includes expulsion or similar.

If the student has been identified as enrolled and attending at another school, then this non-attendance can be excluded from being reported. If after 6 weeks of consecutive days non-attendance a student cannot be located to confirm if they remain enrolled at the school, then this non-attendance is excluded from being reported.

A non-school days is a day where the school (and its locations) are not open for education purposes.

Non-school days include:

• Pupil-free days
• Public holidays
• School holidays
• Religious holidays observed by the school
• Grade specific non-school days (for example, pupil-free days and moderation days)
• Strike action/industrial action
• All classes cancelled for the day (for example, due to a traumatic event impacting students)
• Unexpected temporary school closure (for example, power failure, water failure, closure due to danger from or due to a natural event such as bushfire, cyclone, flood etc)
• Natural disaster/event where students are unable to travel to school and school is closed (for example, travel to school is prevented by road closures due to a natural disaster/event such as bushfire or cyclone and the school is closed on that day).

For most schools there are usually between 80 - 110 school days in Semester 1 and 40 - 60 school days in Term 3.

To work out the schools days for your school's location(s), using a calendar:

1. cross out all non-school days (for the cohort of students you are looking at) between the start of the reference period (e.g. Semester 1; Term 3) and the last day of the reference period.
2. count the number of remaining days in each reference period.
3. the number of remaining days is the School Days in the reference period.

An absence is where a student is expected to be in attendance on a school day and is not. There are many reasons a student may be absent from school.

For a comprehensive list of situations that may constitute an absence for the purpose of the Student Attendance collection download the Factsheet - Assessing Absences and Non-School Days Guide.

How to record a severe weather event or state of emergency

School closures (by either the school or the state/territory government) because of severe weather events and/or state of emergency are non-school days for the purposes of the Student Attendance collection.

Note: This is applicable to other disasters/events where the school is closed by either the school or a school authority.

How to record student absences after a severe weather event or state of emergency

Where the school is not open after a severe weather event or state of emergency, then these days are non-school days.

For example, if a cyclone has passed and the school is not yet open due to damage, then this is a non-school day for the school. If the students are attending a nearby school during this time, then you should seek advice from your Approved Authority about counting students for STATS on these days.

Where your school was open for classes (i.e. a school day) but some students could not physically get to your school in the aftermath of a severe weather event/state of emergency (for example because of road closures and/or flooding), then this is an absence for Student Attendance.

Note: This is applicable to other disasters/events where the school is open but the student is unable to get to school.

You will know you have finished your student attendance submission when the location record you are working on shows the status as Declared. When you see this status it means you have finished the student attendance data submission for your location and met your student attendance obligations for that location under the Australian Education Act 2013.

Yes. SchoolsHUB provides the ability for you to download your submitted data and the data shown in the declaration in both PDF and Microsoft Excel format.

Student Attendance data appears in several public publications on schooling, including:

• My School website for individual school's student attendance rate
• ACARA's National Report on Schooling in Australia for national, state/territory and school sector level student attendance data
• Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services for student attendance data in relation to education as a government service.

Different types of schools provide the department data in a specific manner.

• Independent schools:

  • may use a file downloaded from their school technology system, or a tool provided by the department, and the upload facility in SchoolsHUB;

  • manually enter their data into SchoolsHUB.

• Systemic Schools:

  • provide their data to their System Office who will upload and declare a file of all schools within the system to the department;

  • manually enter their school’s location(s) data into the SchoolsHUB and declare their school’s data;

  • may use a file downloaded from their school technology system or a tool provided by the department and the upload facility in SchoolsHUB.

• Catholic Non-systemic schools may be supported for the collection by their Catholic System Office or they may operate as an independent school and enter/upload their school’s location(s) data for the purposes of this collection using one of the methods described above. 

The Student Attendance collection consists of the following data entry pages:

1. Contacts: you will confirm your location's details, your contact details and complete the acknowledgment of obligations.

2. Getting Started: you will provide some information specific to the school location that will make it easier to provide your Student Attendance data.

3. Enter Data: you will provide your Student Attendance data for each of the year level combinations required based on your answers at Getting Started.

4. Review: you will check we correctly record the data you provided.

5. Declaration: you (or your Approved Authority Representative) will complete a legal declaration about the accuracy and completeness of the data you have provided for the school location.

Note: You have finished when your school location's status shows as Declared.

We are a school with two locations; can we submit everything under the one location/AGEID?

No, the STATS is a campus/location level collection. Student attendance data should not be aggregated at a Head Location level. Student attendance data should be entered on a location AGEID to which it relates.

I have access to more than one school/location in the STATS module. Can I do all of them at once or do I have to do each individually?

Yes, you can do all the schools and locations you have access to at once in STATS (provided you have access to them all). We commonly call this 'systemic school access' which means that you have access to more than one school and its campuses.

Note: your SchoolsHUB Login ID must be set to give you access to the schools/locations. If you cannot see all locations/schools you expect to see, please contact 1800 677 027 (Option 1) to request the correct access.

It is very important that you are confident that the data submitted is correct BEFORE you do the bulk declaration because during a bulk declaration, you do not see the declaration screens and data that a single school/location entry sees.

I am a systemic school user in the STATS module. Can I see an individual school's student attendance data within my system of schools?

Yes. Systemic school users in the STATS module are presented with a list of schools to which they have access. To view the data for an individual school, click on the schools AGEID in the first column of the table you are presented. You will then be taken to the STATS record for that school.