Pictured: Nikki and Fe reflecting on all the things we learned and achieved last night at our first Every Day Counts (EDC) network session!

The ‘Every Day Counts’ campaign is a Burnie Works’ initiative to contribute to improving student attendance at school. We do this through a shared commitment by students, parents, caregivers, schools and the community.

We are on a journey to understand the issues that affect attendance in Burnie. We are working to decide on actions we can take to increase attendance to pre-covid levels. This is our number one goal.

In trying to understand the issues, we have looked at attendance data. This data only tells us that students are not attending school as often as they should. We have been looking for information and stories behind why this is happening, the experiences, concerns and ideas for action. 

So far, we have engaged with the community around school attendance via:

• Chatty Café conversations at the Burnie Library
• Surveys with our Every Day Counts Community Network
• A workshop with the Hellyer College Student Leadership Group
• Hellyer College research project (surveys completed by students from Hellyer College)

This has provided us with information, stories and ideas for action.

The first gathering of the EDC Community Network was an opportunity to bring this information together, make some sense of it, and think about what we need to do next.

Some of the things we have heard so far…

• Many college students felt that they – and their parents, families, and carers – did not know where to go for help or what types of help would be useful.  We will talk to more parents, carers, and young people about what would be helpful for them when they are finding it hard getting to school every day.
  
  
• We also thought that it would be a good idea to see what services and strategies would be useful if students were not wanting to go to school. We will collect this information and share it with the community.
  
  
• We know that earning extra money is important to young people.  But balancing work and school is another issue that college students said they found difficult.  We decided that we need to work with the Burnie business community to raise their awareness of their role in helping young people with this balance. 
  
  
• Working with the Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP) is very important.  We will continue to build our relationship with DECYP so that we are working together to increase school attendance in Burnie. 

Only by working together on these actions will we be able to make a change.