As part of regular collections, South Australian government schools provide data on students, including individual student absences during one full term (usually 10 weeks). These data were analysed to understand how student absence is affected by student background and school contexts. A multilevel statistical model of student absence was developed using data collected in 1997, and repeated for 1999. This paper presents the findings for students in primary schools, showing that absence rates for indigenous students, while higher than the rates for non-indigenous students, are affected by school factors such as the concentration of indigenous students in the school and school socioeconomic status.