Marlborough schools receive high marks in attendance

Kate Russell

School attendance across Marlborough, Nelson, and the West Coast improved in the final term of last year, with new figures showing the region sitting slightly above the national average.

Provisional data shows 58.2 percent of students in the region attended school regularly in Term 4 2025. That was up from 48.9 percent in Term 3 and slightly higher than December 2024’s 56.3 percent.

Nationally, 57.3 percent of children attended school regularly in Term 4, the highest end-of-year figure since attendance dropped to all-time lows in 2022.

Regular attendance is defined as attending school more than 90 percent of the time in a single term. The Government has set a target of 80 percent of students meeting that benchmark by 2030.

The national rate was up from 56.4 percent in Term 4 2024 and well above the low of 48.7 percent recorded in Term 4 2022.

“Kiwi students are showing up to school more, and parents are pushing them to attend. Those students and parents should be proud,” says associate education minister David Seymour.

“When the Government takes attendance seriously, so do schools, parents, and students. It’s important we continue to drive the change in attitude towards attendance.”

David says there is still work to be done. “I expect attendance to continue rising as the roll out of our attendance initiatives continues. Soon every school will have developed and implemented their own attendance management plan. It means there are escalating responses for declining attendance.”

He says schools could contact families when students were absent for five days, organise family meetings at 10 days of absence, and alert truancy services if absences reached 15 days.