Pupil absence and persistence absence levels have increased despite the government’s ongoing school attendance drive, new government data has shown.
Figures published by the Department for Education show the overall absence rate for last term was 7.3 per cent - slightly up on the 7 per cent recorded in the 2022-23 spring term.
The DfE said that the rise was likely to have been caused by a higher level of illness absence. The illness absence rate for the recent term was 3.8 per cent compared with 3.6 per cent last spring.
The proportion of persistently absent pupils has also increased slightly, with 21.9 per cent of pupils missing 10 per cent or more half days in school (sessions) in the current year’s spring term, compared with 20.6 per cent in 2022-23.
Disadvantaged pupils more likely to miss school
The unauthorised absence rate was also up on previous years. The DfE data shows a rate of 2.4 per cent for the spring term compared with 2.3 per cent last year and 1.9 per cent in 2021-22.
Meanwhile, the overall absence rate for disadvantaged pupils was almost double the rate of their peers, with 11.3 per cent of pupils on free school meals (FSM) missing school last term compared with 5.9 per cent for non-disadvantaged pupils.
More than a third (34.8 per cent) of pupils who were eligible for FSM were persistently absent in the spring term, compared with 17.3 per cent of pupils who were not eligible.
The overall absence rate for pupils with an education, health and care plan was 13.6 per cent in the spring term, compared with 11.2 per cent for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support and 6.6 per cent with no identified SEND.
Earlier this year, schools minister Damian Hinds said the government wanted to cut pupil absence levels to below 5 per cent by persuading parents that children should go to school if they have mild illnesses or anxiety.
In an interview with Tes, he said the government aimed to “calibrate” parents’ threshold for keeping children off school back to where it was before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2018-19, the last full academic year before the pandemic, 10.9 per cent of pupils were persistently absent, according to government data.
Attendance support
The DfE expanded its attendance hub programme earlier this year, announcing that 18 more schools are to become hubs, taking the total number to 32.
It also announced a £15 million expansion of its mentor programme for persistently absent pupils and launched a communications campaign aimed at getting parents to send children to school.
Tes revealed last month how schools were hunting for attendance support in an effort to combat rising absence rates.
Government data has shown that pupil absence remained far above pre-pandemic levels last year, despite government efforts to tackle the issue.
Meanwhile, Labour has said it would use artificial intelligence to spot trends in absence as part of its long-term plans to tackle ongoing high levels of non-attendance.
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