About attendance records and reporting

From Term 1 2025, your school or kura must record student attendance data in your SMS every day you are open for instruction. This is a requirement of the Education and Training Act 2020, and the Education (School Attendance) Regulations 2024.

Your SMS will submit this information to the Ministry on your behalf (from 6pm).

Education and Training Act 2020 – New Zealand Legislation

Education (School Attendance) Regulations 2024 (SL 2024/214) Contents – New Zealand Legislation

Later commencement date for kura

The requirement to provide attendance data daily will not apply to specified kura boards until July 2025. This applies to:

• Kura Kaupapa Māori
• designated character school with a character that is hapū or iwi-based or that affiliates with Ngā Kura ā Iwi o Aotearoa
• a state-integrated school with a special character that is hapū or iwi based.

Attendance rules

Under section 237A (Attendance records) of the Education and Training Act 2020, the Secretary for Education has published rules setting out administrative and procedural requirements relating to attendance records. These rules are published in the New Zealand Gazette.

Amendment–School attendance rules 2025 – New Zealand Gazette

Additional advice and guidance on the rules can be found below.

Attendance codes

You must use our attendance codes when recording attendance in your SMS. Each student must be marked with one of these codes for each period or half day that the school is open for instruction.

Reporting of your daily attendance data

We include your school's data on Education Counts as part of the national daily attendance figure. The published data does not identify individual schools. You can request your school's data from your regional office or direct from your SMS.

Daily attendance – Education Counts

Regional offices

Updating previously submitted data

You can change attendance data after is has been submitted by updating the code in your SMS. You should make these changes as soon as possible after the day of absence.

Every Day Matters report

The data you record in your SMS can help you in your efforts to improve attendance. At the end of each term, you will receive from us a provisional Every Day Matters report. Your report will include:

• your school’s regular attendance for the term
• an overview of the reasons given for absence
• insightful trends and next steps
• attendance patterns in your school
• actionable insights to improve student attendance.

You can use your report to inform conversations with staff and your school board about student attendance patterns and unjustified absences in your school.

A final updated Every Day Matters report will also be provided at a later date once your term’s attendance data is finalised.

If we identify any attendance data quality errors or issues at the end of the term, we will email you an end of term data quality report to assist you in rectifying these. Once you have rectified these errors/issues, we will be able to send you your Every Day Matters report.

What this data will be used for

Collecting daily attendance data will bring more attention to and awareness about what is happening across school attendance. It will help us identify earlier what schools might need support.

The data will also inform future policy development and decisions aimed at improving student attendance.