As the 2025 school year takes shape, up to 1.2 million students risk social isolation and chronic absence through no fault of their own. Yet solutions sit at the flick of a policy switch.
“In Australia, we already have legislation and technology to address chronic school absence at scale. Now, we just need long-overdue policy to fix a blind spot where schools struggle to connect students’ medical-mental health challenges with specialised education support during absences.” – Megan Gilmour, MissingSchool CEO and 2025 ACT Australian of the Year
WHAT: Meet global education ambassador Megan Gilmour, alongside families supported by MissingSchool, stakeholders, and leaders in an Australia-first alliance of organisations at the intersection of health and education. See lineup.
WHERE: Australian Parliament House – Dame Dorothy Tangney Alcove
WHEN: Thursday, 13 February 2025, 8am to 11:30am [media welcome]
*MEDIA CALL: 10.50am to 11.30am
Available for interview: Year 12 student, Breana Harris, 19, one of the first to use MissingSchool's telepresence service (starting Year 7 in 2018), lives with Cystic Fibrosis. Her school attendance has dropped as low as 40% due to frequent illness, treatment, and health-related isolation. Chronic pain meant Breana had to defer school in 2024. Read more. She will be joined by Megan Gilmour and others with lived experience, including Mia Gilmour (sibling/peer); Shelley Waller (parent); Mercedes Wilkinson (hospital school principal); and Associate Professor Glenn Melvin (adolescent mental health clinician / school avoidance expert).
Did you know? The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release latest national school enrolment data the same day (13 February). But a policy framing problem means no one is counting students caught in an overlooked absence crisis.
Megan says: "MissingSchool has done the groundwork on the issue, built structured solutions, and hardwired the connections. The Australian Government just needs to turn on the lights."
Plus, hear from a tripartisan lineup of MP speakers including Senator the Hon Sarah Henderson (Shadow Minister for Education); Senator Penny Allman-Payne (Greens Spokesperson for Education); the Hon Patrick Gorman MP, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister; and Federal Member for Canberra (ALP), Ms Alicia Payne MP, representing the Hon Jason Clare MP, Minister for Education.
Media Contacts:
Megan Gilmour, 0411-162-597 or megan.gilmour@missingschool.org.au
Amelia Metcalf, 0416-121-359 or amelia@bourkestreetadvisory.com
See full run sheet and download images and video (including b-roll) here
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What to expect? On 13 February, Dame Dorothy Tangney Alcove will host vital conversations at the intersection of health and education and showcase solutions to the school attendance crisis.
Meet the co-creators of Australian-first National Insights for Education Directories (NIEDs), harnessing data from 300+ organisations to pave the way for a coordinated approach to absence support across Australian schools through national regulation and real-time information for teachers and families about specific health impacts on students' education. Dynamic Q&A with health organisation representatives like those on Live & Learn podcast.
Learn about the launch of See-Be Teach Me, a digital training portal and community of practice to unlock teacher capacity for addressing chronic absence linked to complex health challenges. This pioneering platform will host 30 on-demand training units to bridge the gap in available training for overstretched educators. Training integrates Disability Standards for Education through a wellbeing framework, ultimately to include an assessment tool and guidelines to support effective “teach once, learn from anywhere” models.
Get updates on MissingSchool's policy progress. Data from 1,400+ surveys and interviews shows that keeping kids connected to school reduces anxiety, restores school support, and smooths transitions for students with complex health challenges. With up to 1.2 million students facing attendance issues, policies must make assistive telepresence the new standard, ensure training for teachers and health professionals, and use attendance data for early intervention, paving the way for inclusive, future-ready schools.
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Background: Building on the success of Australia’s first school telepresence service (See-Be, since 2017), MissingSchool is steering groundswell support for its Seen&Heard initiative by mobilising health partnerships for education connection across every state and territory. Seen&Heard seeks mainstream adoption of “teach once” telepresence in schools to keep learning and wellbeing alive from anywhere. Supported by a suite of digital tools and services, piloted nationwide in the Commonwealth-funded Emerging Priorities Program (2023–24), the groundbreaking initiative is now backed by a multi-year grant from the TPG Telecom Foundation.
About MissingSchool CEO and Co-Founder Megan Gilmour: The global education ambassador and technology trailblazer co-founded MissingSchool after watching her son, Darcy, struggle with a two-year period of school isolation due to a life-threatening illness and his sister, Mia, with shared trauma. Since then, she has led the nonprofit, tirelessly advocating for school connection for students with complex medical and mental health conditions, their families, teachers and peers through awareness, resources, capacity building, activating human-centred technology, and world-leading research. Watch her inspiring TEDxCanberra talk, reaching 836K views.
FAST FACTS
Founded in 2012, MissingSchool was the first organisation in Australia to address chronic school absence of months to years for up to one in three students facing medical-mental challenges serious enough to impact their education and wellbeing.
Since 2018, the nonprofit has collaborated with Australian schools to reconnect 7,140+ classmates, train 700+ teachers and conduct 1,427+ teacher/parent surveys.
MissingSchool is on a mission to “close for business” once education’s Blockbuster moment is met by mainstreaming “learn from anywhere” telepresence technology for school access, no different to wheelchair ramps.
There is no safe level of absence – 40% of early school leavers in Australia have a chronic condition, and are more likely to be high-risk developmentally, and perform below NAPLAN minimum standards. They face greater trauma, isolation, bullying, and school refusal.
No amount of funding in school can help a student who is not there.
School non-completion costs Australia nearly $1 million per student in lost productivity.
Contact details:
Megan Gilmour, 0411-162-597 or megan.gilmour@missingschool.org.au
Amelia Metcalf, 0416-121-359 or amelia@bourkestreetadvisory.com
