The number of pupils severely absent from schools has reached a record high, despite early signs of improvement in overall absence.
Experts fear that the high rates of severe absence - when 50 per cent of sessions are missed - “remain a real concern” as they reach their highest level since data collection began.
The Department for Education has released for the 2023-24 academic year today.
The scale of pupil absence
Around 2.3 per cent of pupils were severely absent in 2023-24 (up from 2 per cent the previous year) - which amounts to 171,269 pupils now being classed as severely absent (up from 150,256).
This is despite the government’s attendance tsar telling schools this month to focus on occasional absenteeism to shift their attendance rates.
The education secretary Bridget Phillipson has taken a strong line on absence, telling schools that “hard graft” is needed to tackle absence and that some schools need to “catch up fast”.
However, the government is yet to reveal the future of its attendance hubs scheme, and how the new RISE teams will support schools with attendance.
Green shoots
Despite concerning figures for severe absence, other areas of attendance show early signs of green shoots.
Overall absence rates for schools have decreased to 7.1 per cent from 7.4 per cent in 2022-23, but the level remains significantly higher than before the pandemic (4.7 per cent in 2018-19).
The number of persistently absent pupils has also continued to drop to 20 per cent in 2023-24, from 21.2 per cent in the previous year.
But the unauthorised absence rate rose by 0.1 per cent to 2.5 per cent in the most recent year. In 2018-19, the rate was only 1.4 per cent.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that despite signs of improvement, the rates of persistent and severe absence “remain a real concern”.
“We need to accept that schools cannot solve this issue on their own,” Mr Di’Iasio said.
“Without investing in a strategic response to this issue, it is difficult to see how attendance rates are going to change at the scale required.”
Mr Di’Iasio warned ASCL’s annual conference last week that schools have been “left looking like the villains” on absence, as a survey showed that parents and carers are most likely to list term-time holidays as the reason why they take their child out of school.
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Today, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, warned that the current approach to tackling absence “just isn’t working”.
“Simply increasing the pressure on schools, without providing any additional resource for them to tackle the issue, is fruitless,” he said.
“More is needed from the government at a fundamental societal level to truly shift the dial,” he added.
The link with disadvantage
While the overall absence rate has decreased for primary schools, the change for secondary schools and special schools remains marginal (9 per cent to 8.9 per cent and unchanged at 13 per cent, respectively).
The absence rate for pupils with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) has also risen to 12.6 per cent in 2023-24 from 12.3 per cent in 2022-23.
The overall absence rate for pupils who are eligible for free school meals was 11 per cent this year, a slight decrease of 0.1 per cent from the previous year.
A report by the Education Policy Institute found that pupil absence is a key and growing driver of the gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.
The North East had the highest overall and persistent absence rate at 7.8 per cent and 22.1 per cent respectively, while the South West had the highest severe absence rate at 2.8 per cent.
