Big turnout nice surprise
School principals say they are “pleasantly surprised” by a turnout of just under 80 per cent of students on the first full school day after the Covid-19 lockdown.
Ministry of Education data from 1470 of the 2517 schools nationwide shows an average attendance rate of 79 per cent.
A smaller Facebook survey of 400 schools by the Principals’ Federation showed 82 per cent turnout.
Federation president Perry Rush said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the figures.
“I think to have a 1 to 2 per cent return rate at level 3 and 80 per cent or so at level 2, given that this is the first day, is pretty good,” he said.
“We know that there will be families who are not sending their children, it might be for a few days, but this is a good first indicator that confidence is there.”
Attendance in his survey ranged from highs of almost 100 per cent ¯ atOdowntojust28percent tangarei School in Whanga¯rei, where principal Myles Ferris said many families had been scared by a rumour circulating on social media.
“Apparently there’s a message going around that Oranga Tamariki and police are going to come in and take children away without the parents’ knowledge and have them medicated, all without informing the parents,” he said.
He posted a message on his school’s Facebook page saying he would never let a child be taken by Oranga Tamariki or be medicated without talking to the parents first.
Leanne Otene, principal of Whanga¯rei’s Manaia View School, said 50 per cent of her students turned up, but that was partly because about 25 per cent had asthma and other conditions making them vulnerable to any virus outbreak.
Te Tai Tokerau Principals’ Association president Pat Newman said 70 per cent of his students at Hora Hora School turned up, but he
We know that there will be families who are not sending their children . . . but this is a good first indicator that confidence is there.
Perry Rush, Principals’ Federation
had also been asked on Facebook about the Oranga Tamariki rumour.
“I nearly fell off my seat in laughter,” he said. “It’s just that usual feeling of the unknown. It’s an unusual Te Tai Tokerau belief.”
Northland also had the lowest regional attendance during alert level 3, with only 1 per cent of its students turning up on any day between April 29 and May 15 — about half the national average.
Both school and early childhood attendance rates during level 3 were highest in Auckland, Waikato and South Island regions.
Parents were as excited as their children as they arrived at one Auckland school, decile 5 Flanshaw Road School in Te Atatu¯, even though it is close to one of the deadliest Covid19 clusters at St Margaret’s rest home.
Principal Cherie Taylor-Patel reported a turnout of 73 per cent.
Parents Marcel and Rebecca Fletcher said their two children, aged 7 and 5, had loved being at home with mum and dad, but both were working at home so schoolwork had “kind of been on the backburner”.
Son Ante, 7, said he was “a little bit scared about going back”.
But Emily Knight, 8, and her mother, Fiona Knight, said they were “excited” to be back.
“I get to see my friends again,” Emily said. Fiona said the family had spent lockdown together playing games and “doing stuff together”.
Red Beach School on the Whangapara¯oa Peninsula, where teachers dressed in wigs and decked the school in balloons to welcome children back, reported 95 per cent attendance and “lots of happy faces”.
In South Auckland, Ormiston Primary School also reported a low turnout of 62 per cent. Principal Heath McNeil said many parents came from countries where the pandemic is still raging and much tighter controls are still in place.
Auckland Secondary Schools Principals’ Association president Steve Hargreaves said his attendance rate at Macleans College was 96.3 per cent.
Rangitoto College reported 98 per cent, St Peter’s College 96 per cent, and several other secondary schools were in the mid-90s.
Hargreaves said fears of hundreds being left on the roadside because of reduced capacity on buses did not materialise. “We picked up a couple, and I just had an angry email from one dad whose son missed out.
“But we had huge numbers of parents driving their kids to school.”
Auckland Transport spokesman Mark Hannan said AT had no reports of children being left behind.