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How the attendance service works#
The attendance service works with students who are chronically absent and non-enrolled students. It works with schools who have already exhausted their own interventions. Schools can contact the service for help with managing attendance and reducing chronic absence.
We contract providers across the country to deliver this service.
New attendance services were put in place in January 2026.
This guide gives you information about the attendance service and helps schools decide when to request support from an attendance service provider for ākonga who are chronically absent.
See a map of all the catchments in the new attendance service and their providers.
Attendance services – Google maps
When to request support from an attendance service provider#
Students may be absent from school for many reasons. Using the STAR framework and your attendance management plan will help you identify and address escalating patterns of absence.
Our 'When to request chronic absence support' guide will help you decide when to request further support. Attendance services will support ākonga | students who are chronically absent. These ākonga have ongoing, significant or complex attendance concerns, and have not improved through school-based approaches alone.
The guide gives useful information to support your judgement and decision making. It makes sure that attendance services are targeted to those students who most need it.
Each year, around 200,000 students are chronically absent for 1 or more terms.
Under the new model, attendance service providers have capacity to support up to 45,000 chronically absent students each year and up to 20,000 non-enrolled students.
Criteria for requesting support may be adjusted to manage service demand and maintain service quality. Schools and providers will be advised of any changes.
How to request support using the attendance service case management system#
You should request support for chronically absent students through the new attendance service case management system (AS-CMS).
Chronic absence request for support form – Attendance services case management system
You will receive an on-screen confirmation that your support request has been successfully submitted.
Read our guide on how to use the AS-CMS:
You will continue to use ENROL for non-enrolment notifications.
To ensure the system remains stable and performs well for all users, we are phasing the rollout of some features.
These additional capabilities will be introduced in our next release, which is scheduled shortly.
You will shortly be able to:
- assign someone else as the school’s primary contact when submitting a support request. Before then, if you are entering a request on behalf of another person, we recommend making a note of the correct contact. You will be able to update this information once the next release is available
- view existing attendance cases that have been referred by their school to an attendance service provider
- receive email notifications about their cases.
These features are on the way and will be available soon as part of the next release.
Training module#
There is also an online module to help schools learn about key tasks they can perform in the system.
Access to the module requires an Education Sector Logon. After you are logged in, open the 'Attendance Service for Schools' tile, and complete the 'Online Attendance Service for Schools' module.
Assigning roles#
Before accessing the AS-CMS, your Education Sector Logon (ESL) delegated authoriser will need to assign roles to staff members/users.
This guide tells you how to assign roles in the ESL portal. It includes information on what the roles are (for example, attendance lead) and what they can do within the system.
Where to get help with the attendance service case management system#
Refer to the AS-CMS quick reference guide for information about navigating and using the system.
For any other AS-CMS queries, contact the Education Service Desk:
Freephone: 0800 422 599 (NZ only)
Email: [email protected]
If the Service Desk cannot resolve your question, they will escalate it to the appropriate team.
