Let birthday pupils skip lunch queue to cut absence, schools told

Schools are urged to allow pupils to skip the lunch queue on their birthday to boost attendance, in a new Department for Education toolkit launched today.

The government has announced a new package of attendance support for schools, which it says is based on successful practice from schools across the country.

It will include a personalised tool, based on real-time data, showing cohort absence patterns over the year, as well as a practical toolkit and a communications guide to improve engagement with families.

The DfE has today highlighted analysis suggesting that pupils are up to 55 per cent more likely to be absent from school on their birthday, and overall absence rates are on average 2.7 percentage points higher on birthdays.

It has warned that this is an example of “just one day off” absences that it says could be quietly costing children weeks of learning.

DfE interventions on attendance

The DfE also said that schools that do not finish the year on a Friday see absence rates rise by 27 per cent in that final week of term.

“Taken together, patterns of occasional, often avoidable absence like these are a key part of worse school attendance post-Covid,” the DfE said.

To counter this, the DfE resources will highlight examples of possible school initiatives aimed at improving attendance.

These include giving pupils a queue-jump pass at lunch on their birthday, and the use of “under the weather” forms to help parents and schools agree in advance how to support children who may struggle during the school day.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “By sharing what works and backing our wider reforms to make schools places where children feel they belong, want to be and can achieve and thrive, together we can ensure more children are in the classroom every day.”

Responding to the announcement, James Bowen, assistant general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, emphasised that it is important for pupils to be in school, even on “special days like birthdays”.

Mr Bowen said that regular “one-off” absences can add up, and he welcomed the new tools for tracking patterns of one-off absences in schools.

However, he added: “As this analysis shows, there is a limit to how much schools can influence this type of ‘just one day off’ absence, and we have to be realistic about what [they] can do.

“While there is much schools already do to encourage good attendance, ultimately, responsibility for ensuring children attend schools regularly sits with parents.

“It’s also important not to lose sight of the fact that the biggest issue for schools is pupils with persistent and consistent absence, which can be driven by far more serious and difficult-to-solve issues”.

Identifying absence patterns

Caz Brasenell, executive principal at Ark Kings Academy in Birmingham, said: “The new data-tool insights provided by government will help school leaders identify attendance patterns more quickly and focus support where it is most needed.

“By visualising trends across different groups of pupils, schools can take a more proactive approach to attendance and intervene before issues become entrenched.”

Amid the concerns over one-off absences, the latest DfE statistics show that severe absences - where pupils miss 50 per cent or more of academic sessions - reached a record high last year. 

According to the data, a total of 176,361 students missed at least half of their sessions in 2024-25, an increase from 171,269 the previous year and 150,256 in 2022-23.

Meanwhile, analysis published by FFT Education Datalab today shows that primary teachers who are highly effective at improving test scores in reading and maths are not necessarily the ones that improve attendance.

“Efforts to recruit, develop and retain high-quality teachers remain crucial for raising attainment,” said FFT research associate John Jerrim, a professor of education and social statistics at UCL Institute of Education.

“However, the results for attendance suggest that this may not be true for every outcome.”