School Attendance

Every day counts We all want our students to get a great education, and the building blocks for a great education begin with students coming to school each and every day. Missing school can have a major impact on a child’s future – a student missing one day a fortnight will miss four full weeks by the end of the year. By Year 10 they’ll have missed more than a year of school. There is no safe number of days for missing school – each day a student misses puts them behind, and can affect their educational outcomes. Coming to school every day is vital, but if for any reason your child must miss school, there are things we can do together to ensure they don’t fall behind: Speak with your classroom teacher and find out what work your child needs to do to keep up. Develop an absence learning plan with your teacher and ensure your child completes the plan. Remember, every day counts. If your child must miss school, speak with your classroom teacher as early as possible. From 1 March 2014, new laws will mean that parents can be fined for not sending students to school without an acceptable reason. If you’re having attendance issues with your child, please let your classroom teacher know so we can work together to get your child to school every day. Please click on the link below for more information on School Attendance. Every Day Counts

Student Engagement Policy   This school strives to promote a happy, healthy, supportive and secure environment for all children and to raise awareness of what makes students resilient, to develop strategies to reduce vulnerabilities, to build student/school connectedness and to increase coping skills.     Student Wellbeing and Engagement Policy

Thomastown meadows primary school same-day notification of unexplained student absences

 Contact details

There are times when we will need to contact you, including on the day if your child is absent and you haven’t informed the school as to why. Do we have your most up to date contact details?  If not, please contact the school on 9466 1810 so we can update our records. Please include parent/carers’ name, address, phone numbers, email address and emergency contact details. Please remember to contact the school if any of these details or your circumstances change.

Notify the school of your child’s absence

Protecting the safety and well-being of children through the reporting and monitoring of absenteeism is the responsibility of both parents/carers and schools.

Please remember to log your child’s absence using our school’s IT platform Compass School Manager https://thomastownmeadows-vic.compass.education/ using your supplied user name and password, early in the morning if your child is going to be away or late for school so your child’s absence can be recorded correctly.

Same-day notification of unexplained student absences

Our school will SMS/text you as soon as practicable on the day if your child is not at school and you haven’t notified the school as to why. If you are notified by the school that your child is away without a reason, please contact us as soon as possible  to let us know where your child is. If we cannot reach you because we don’t have your correct contact details (i.e message notification fail, disconnected number), then we will make contact with any emergency contacts nominated on your child’s file held by the school, where possible, on the same day of the unexplained absence.

Please remember it is your responsibility to contact us to provide an explanation for your child's absence from school, and where possible, please inform us in advance of upcoming absences eg. Family holidays.  You can do this by informing the Office and completing paperwork or apply on Compass. 

New Attendance Requirements

If your child is sick or absent, you are required to notify the school as soon as possible on the day of absence, by logging onto Compass https://thomastownmeadows-vic.compass.education/  or contact the school on 9466 1810.

Notifying the school of your child’s absence either prior to, or on the day that they will be away, helps ensure the safety and wellbeing of all children and will fulfil your legal responsibility.

From the end of Term 2 2018, all Victorian government schools are required to contact parents/carers as soon as practicable on the same day of an unexplained student absence. If your child is absent on a particular day and you have not contacted the school to explain why, the absence will be marked as unexplained.

This system also promotes daily school attendance. Going to school every day is the single most important part of your child’s education, they learn new things every day – missing school puts them behind.