Data set from Outcomes for children in need, including children looked after by local authorities in England

National - Absence

Latest data

Published 10 April 2025

Last updated 10 April 2025

Full-year absence by type of school and social care group. Data for 2019/20 is not available.

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Data set details

• Theme: Children's social care
• Publication: Outcomes for children in need, including children looked after by local authorities in England
• Release: Reporting year 2024
• Geographic levels: National
• Indicators:
  • Authorised absence percentage
  • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Number of overall absence sessions
• Filters:
  • School type
  • Social care group
• Time period: 2017/18 to 2023/24

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Data set preview

Table showing first 5 rows, from underlying data

time_period	time_identifier	geographic_level	country_code	country_name	absence_terms	social_care_group	phase_type_grouping	t_pupils	t_sess_possible	t_sess_overall	pt_overall	t_sess_authorised	pt_sess_authorised	t_sess_unauthorised	pt_sess_unauthorised	t_pupils_pa_10_exact	pt_pupils_pa_10_exact	t_pupils_pa_50_exact	pt_pupils_pa_50_exact
202324	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	six half terms	All pupils comparison	Special	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
202324	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	six half terms	All pupils comparison	State-funded alternative provision school	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
202324	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	six half terms	All pupils comparison	State-funded primary	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
202324	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	six half terms	All pupils comparison	State-funded secondary	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
202324	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	six half terms	All pupils comparison	Total	7494330	2628813500	190898770	7.3	124429730	4.7	66469040	2.5	1520620	20.3	187200	2.5

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Variables in this data set

Table showing first 5 of 14 variables

Variable name	Variable description
phase_type_grouping	School type - Filter by school type
pt_overall	Overall absence percentage
pt_pupils_pa_10_exact	Persistent absentees percentage
pt_pupils_pa_50_exact	Severe absentees percentage
pt_sess_authorised	Authorised absence percentage

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Footnotes

1. The all pupils comparison figures taken from the national publication are produced using a different methodology based on enrolments and the school type is allocated in a different way. As a result of this, the all pupils comparison is not provided by school type as it is not appropriate to compare. More detailed information on the absence data published within this release is available in the accompanying methodology.
2. Due to the disruption caused by the impact of COVID during the 2020/21 and 2021/22 academic years, caution should be taken when comparing data to previous years. No absence data relating to the full 2019/20 academic year is available.

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