Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Cathy Chalmers: Manurewa Attendance Service Lead Principal on the Government's new attendance services and targets

Transcript

Cathy Chalmers: Manurewa Attendance Service Lead Principal on the Government's new attendance services and targets · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: David Semol's school attendance crack down continues. So he's scrapped
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the old contracts that they were operating under and set
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: tougher attendance targets. One hundred and twenty three million dollars
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: extra over four years, eighty three new deals, one hundred
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and seventy schools that get extra help for chronic absentees.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Three percent of funding will go to basics like uniforms, devices,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: transport for kids who can't afford them. Kathy Charmers is
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Green Meadows Intermediate principle lead principle of the Money Attendance
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Service with me now, Kathy, good.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Morning, Good morning.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: So what's happened with your contract under this?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, so we've won a contract for al Alphaston Tucknamy catchment,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: so we only applied for that part of Manuoa. So
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: and that's the area that we'll be served. Yeah, so
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: it's a it's a good contract.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: These the way that he's designed it, doing things like
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: instead of getting money based on how many students you've got,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: but based on how many students you've got absent are
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: these smart things will make a difference.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I believe they will. I think that's a much fairer
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: way of distributing the resourcing. Our number of attendant services
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: that we will be able to get in our area
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: has doubled. Having said that, we also have taken on
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: the non enrolled contract as well, so that you know
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: the number of cases will get will be increasing as
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: well and be a little bit more complex.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: We know that by twenty thirty the goal is eighty
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: percent of students attending school more than ninety percent of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the time. What's your area at the moment, what are
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: where are you at and do you think you can
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: get there?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: My school at the moment floats around sixty percent. I'd
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: like to think that we could get there, but it's
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: a pretty it's a pretty aspirational target to reach. Two aspects.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: For that four days off in the winter turn when
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: it's you know, there's a lot of illness going around
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: in our area. That's a tricky one to meet the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: ninety percent target. But also the chronic absences in our
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: area are usually at the root of them are really
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: really complex situations, and that's going to be honest. I
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: think that also needs wrap around from other services, not
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: just the attendance of this to make that target.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Because those I didn't realize this. Three percent of a
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: school's allocation can be spent on stuff like uniforms or transport.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: You know, if there are if there are economic reasons
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of kids not attending school, we can actually fix that.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: You can fix it short term, but you're not going
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: to be able to continue that funding long term. So
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: that would be where you would have Kevin other avenue
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: or hope that the parents would you know, it's a
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: kick start. I mean, certainly, I think that's a really
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: excellent part of the contract that we've got the flexibility
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: to do that. But there will be you know, there's
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: downsides to that as well, because what happens once that
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: funding for that child stops. We can't continue to pay
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: that parents for the rest of these full time So
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: one hopes that they get back to school and back
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: into a pattern of attendance is what the hope is.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Kathy Chammers A Charmer's forgiven me very great to have
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: you on the program. That's Green Meadows intermediate principle and
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: lead principle of the Monneto Attendance Service. For more from
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: early edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news talks.
• 3:31
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• 3:34
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