Rotorua Girls’ High School student Casey Paul has had a perfect attendance record since her first day of school at age five – even turning down a family trip to Hawaii to stay in class.
She is determined to keep her record going in 2025.
Paul said she did not know how she had managed to achieve such solid attendance saying “it just happened”.
She said in her first year at primary school she discovered there was a ceremony to recognise children’s school attendance that was run by then-mayor Steve Chadwick and she was inspired to get one of the certificates that was given out there.
“It was just a 100% attendance ceremony so [for] anyone that hadn’t had a day off in that entire year.”
Paul said at times she had been ill, but never on a school day.
“I have been sick but surprisingly have only been sick in the holidays or in the weekend.”
Paul said she has only had Covid-19 once but it was during the holidays.
Paul turned down a family holiday to Hawaii so as not to ruin her perfect attendance record.
She said she tried to convince her family to go anyway “but they didn’t want to leave me behind”.
Asked why she was so keen never to miss a day of school, Paul said mainly it was because she did not want to fall behind in her classes.
It is Paul’s final year of school this year and she said she hoped to go on to do a Bachelor of Health Science majoring in paramedicine to become a paramedic.
Paul was already a St John youth cadet saying she did it one night a week and you could earn badges, go to camps and “there’s a lot of different opportunities within it”.
“The reason that I wanted to become a paramedic is because I love being able to help people when and where I can.”
Providing an incentive helped children to want to attend school, she said.
“My school, that’s Rotorua Girls’ High School, offers a lunch for, I think it’s anyone above 85 percent attendance each term and it is a free lunch kind of thing from Pita Pit, like the school will buy a range of food from Pita Pit and we go into the staff room and have lunch as like a celebratory thing to try and drive kids to be able to reach the 85 percent attendance mark.”
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