Pupil absence was still way above pre-pandemic levels last year, despite a slight fall on the previous 12 months, the latest government data shows.
The overall absence rate was 7.4 per cent in the 2022-23 academic year, compared with 4.7 per cent in the last full academic year before the Covid pandemic.
In 2021-22 the absence rate was 7.6 per cent but there was another 1 per cent of sessions missed in that year because of Covid restrictions. This means that attendance levels were 1.2 per cent higher in 2022-23 than for the previous academic year.
The data, published today, also shows that more than one in five pupils (21.2 per cent) were persistently absent in 2022-23, missing 10 per cent or more of their sessions.
DfE efforts to tackle pupil absence
Persistent absence reduced from 24.2 per cent in autumn term to 20.6 per cent in spring term, then jumped again to 23.9 per cent in the summer term, more than double the level seen before Covid.
In 2018-19, the last full academic year before the pandemic, 10.9 per cent of pupils were persistently absent.
The stubbornly high absence rates continued last year despite government efforts to improve school attendance in the wake of the pandemic.
In a bid to tackle the drop in school attendance, the Education Attendance Alliance, comprising leaders from across the schools sector, was launched in December 2021 by Nadhim Zahawi, when he was education secretary.
In 2022 the government started its Attendance Mentors scheme as a three-year pilot, to provide “intensive one-to-one support to persistently absent pupils and their families”.
This year the government has rolled out a programme of attendance hubs, which allows networks of schools to share successful approaches to improving attendance. It also plans to launch 10 new attendance mentor programmes in September 2024.
The full 2022-23 academic year data published by the DfE today today shows that the absence rate varied across terms; from 7.5 per cent of sessions in the autumn to 7 per cent in spring and 7.6 per cent in the summer.
The majority of absence was down to illness, which accounted for 3.7 per cent of sessions missed in 2022-23. This figure includes pupils off school with Covid.
Persistent absence among poorer pupils
The absence rate for pupils eligible for free school meals was slightly higher in 2022-23 compared with a year earlier: 11.1 per cent against 10.8 per cent.
And more than one in three pupils in receipt of free school meals were persistently absent in 2022-23 - 36.5 per cent, which represented a slight fall on 37.3 per cent in 2021-22.
Data shows that absence in special schools remains higher than in primary or secondary mainstream schools, but it did drop slightly in 2022-23.
The absence rate for special schools was 13 per cent compared with 13.2 per cent a year earlier.
The absence rate in primary schools was 5.9 per cent, compared with 6.3 per cent in 2021-22. In secondary schools the rate stayed the same at 9 per cent.
Severe absence warning
Today’s data also shows that more than 150,000 pupils were severely absent from school in the 2022-23 summer term - missing more than 50 per cent of sessions.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The fact that so many are missing more than half their time in school should be cause for major concern.
“Advertising slogans and attendance hubs are just not going to make a tangible difference to pupils who are missing days or weeks of school at a time. We have to be far more ambitious.”
He called for greater mental health support for children and investment in attendance support services.
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