The absence rate across all schools reached 7.8 per cent last term, as high rates of illness drove down pupil attendance in the run-up to Christmas.

Figures released by the Department for Education this morning show that the attendance rate was just 85.7 per cent across all schools in the week of 12 December.

Absence was up from the previous week when attendance sat at 88.9 per cent.

The government said that the increase was driven primarily by illness absence, which was 9.1 per cent, up from 7.5 per cent in the previous week and 2.6 per cent at the start of term.

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The figures mean that the overall attendance last term was just 92.2 per cent, with absence standing at 6.5 per cent in state-funded primary schools, 9.3 per cent in state-funded secondaries and 13.5 per cent in state-funded special schools.

This compares to an absence rate of just 4.9 per cent in autumn 2019 - the final term before the pandemic hit.

The data comes after health chiefs warned earlier this month that flu and Covid cases are expected to rise, while high numbers of scarlet fever infections are also being reported.

Last month, FFT Education Datalab produced new figures from its Attendance Tracker that suggested recent illness absence in primary schools was as high as at any point during the peak of the Omicron wave of Covid in January last year. This was based on information from 10,000 schools using its service.

Earlier today, the cross-party Commons Education Select Committee launched an inquiry into persistent absence.