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When the bell sounds for the start of the school year at south Auckland's Anchorage Park School some of the chairs are likely to be empty, principal Belinda Johnston says.

The Child Poverty Monitor comprises a partnership between the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, the New Zealand Child and Youth Epidemiology Service (NZCYES) at the University of Otago, and the J R McKenzie Trust.

At 9am on my first day as principal of a small primary school, I shut my office door and burst into tears. After just 30 minutes on the job, I'd been sworn at by a child, abused by a parent, and a teacher had threatened to walk out. It only got worse. 

Almost a quarter of New Zealand women who responded to a KidsCan survey have missed school or work because they have been unable to afford sanitary items.