ATTENDANCE POLICY
Introduction: It is a generally recognized principle that students in professional degree programs like the
BSW program should attend all classes. Social work courses have been designed to ensure that students
have the opportunity to integrate appropriate professional knowledge, values and skills. With this in
mind, the following policy has been developed.
1. Purpose: The purpose of this attendance policy is threefold:
a) To ensure that the academic standards are maintained;
b) To specify what professional behaviors are expected from social work students with regard to class
attendance; and
c) To support a learning environment where student participation contributes to knowledge
development for other students and ensures that the morale of classes and seminars are enhanced.
2. It is a program expectation that all students will attend all classes.
2.1 Regular attendance and punctuality is expected of all students in all courses. An instructor may
initiate procedures to bar a student from attending classes and from final examinations and/or from
receiving credit where absences exceed those permitted by the Faculty regulations. Instructors may also
‘count’ late arrival as an ‘absence’, and may ask the student to remain out of class until an appropriate
time to enter, particularly if interruptions will distract the whole class.
2.2 Students who miss 2 classes in a 3 credit course or 4 classes in a 6 credit course may, at the
discretion of the instructor, be required to write a general knowledge examination, or do an additional
assignment to demonstrate their understanding of the course content. Criteria that an instructor might
use to reach a decision regarding whether or not a student should do additional work might include
unexplained absences or student academic performance in the course.
2.3 Certain courses in the BSW curriculum are structured so that participation is deemed to be essential
to learning the basics of the course content. These generally include all practice courses, including IPCS.
As such, students who miss 1/3 of the classes in the following courses may, at the discretion of the
instructor, fail the following courses.
SWRK 3140 Introduction to Social Work Practice SWRK 4070 Inner City Practices
SWRK 2070 Small Group Dynamics SWRK 2080 Interpersonal Communication Skills
SWRK 4130 Advanced IPCS SWRK 4210 Feminist Perspectives on Social Work
SWRK 4220 Aboriginal People & Social Work Practice SWRK 4200 Field/Focus 1
SWRK 4300 Filed/Focus 2
2.4 Individual Course Standards
While 2.2 above sets a minimum standard of course attendance for all courses offered through the
social work program, nothing in it prevents the individual course instructors from building into their
courses additional grades for attendance and participation.
2.5 Missed Course Material
Students are responsible for all course material missed due to absence.
3. Procedure for when students are unable to attend classes:
3.1 When absenteeism is unavoidable, students are required to communicate their absence to the
instructor prior to the class if at all possible.