About attendance records and reporting

Your school or kura must record student attendance data and provide it to us daily from Term 1 2025. This is a requirement of Education and Training Act 2020, and the Education (School Attendance) Regulations 2024.

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 codes

Use our attendance codes when recording attendance in your SMS. Each student must have 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.

Data quality reports

We send your school a report every 2 weeks. The report highlights:

• data errors like missing student or attendance information
• attendance information that has been entered into the SMS incorrectly.

You must update these errors as soon as you receive the report. Our Data Quality Report Help Guides explain how to report attendance correctly. These will be available in 2025.

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.