by Kirsten Hancock
It's that time of the year when WA kids head back to the classroom, fresh from an extended summer break, batteries recharged, brains ready for a re-boot and the daily routine of learning mixed with play begins for another 12 months.
There are those who have done it all before and there are those who will be taking their first giant step into the land of formal learning.
In 2014 public schools in WA expect their students to be in class around 196 days, give or take a few depending on teacher development days.
For many kids though that figure will be less - some by a little and some by a lot. Taking into consideration family holidays, sick days and general absenteeism most kids will at some point miss school either by choice or by necessity.
So how much of an impact do those missed days have on a child's education and development?
Listen to the science and you may be surprised.
A recent study from The Kids Research Institute Australia has revealed some interesting facts about just how important those school attendance days are.
Using a combination of school enrolment figures, attendance records and NAPLAN results provided by the WA Education Department, our research group was able to study the school attendance patterns of over 415,000 primary and high school students over a five year time-frame.
On top of that we also looked at how those absences - whether authorised or unauthorised - related to a child's NAPLAN results. It was a fascinating study that uncovered some important findings.
Let's start with the very young, those embarking on school life for the very first time. We were able to determine that a child's attendance pattern develops from as early as Year 1, with our analysis showing that a poor start with school attendance carries on right through into the secondary level and on a much larger scale.
In fact our research also suggested that a child's school attendance pattern is influenced by factors even before they reach school age with lower attendance rates more prevalent in households that were highly mobile and in those whose parents had lower levels of education and job status. This finding suggests a real need to develop new initiatives to encourage parents to understand the value of regular school attendance even from a very young age.
Children learn their habits early so if they are taught that they need to 'show up' for school and make that commitment from a young age then they will carry that positive mentality for the years ahead, not only at school but throughout their careers and life generally.
Significantly our research also went on to show that when it comes down to it 'every day counts'.
We wanted to know how many days of absence kids could 'get away with' before it started to affect how they were doing at school. The answer was none.
Every day of absence made a difference, and this was particularly true for unauthorised absences. The effect of one day of absence was relatively small but added up quickly as more and more days were missed.
So what does this mean? Well, on average WA state primary school kids miss around 15 days of school a year and for secondary students that jumps to 25 days of school per year. In terms of bottoms on seats these figures equate to around 16,000 children absent from WA public schools each day.
While most students will have a good reason to be away, there are many who will not.
For those kids who do okay in the classroom and only miss the odd day here and there it's probably not so much of an issue. But for kids who don't find learning quite so easy and are absent for longer and more frequent periods of time the long term impact can be significant.
Part of our research involved studying NAPLAN levels against student attendance rates and in all areas of our work we found that academic achievement on NAPLAN became worse as attendance rates decreased.
We also found that the effect of missing days accumulated over time, so that school absence not only impacted in the year in which the days were missed but in future years as well.
Of course it's unrealistic to expect kids to never miss some days at school and we all understand that there will be times for family and health reasons that children will be absent from the classroom.
But what this research does reinforce is the need for parents to be fully informed about the long term impact of too many authorised and unauthorised absences, and for initiatives to be developed to help families establish stable and beneficial routines for attending school.