Academic year 2023/24

Children missing education

Data guidance

Published 29 February 2024

Description

This document describes the data included in the Children missing education ad-hoc statistics release underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in a new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in a new tab). The methodology document should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

The release provides information on the number of children missing education at census date in each term, plus the number of children missing education at any time in the previous academic year.

File formats and conventions

LA and regional data has been rounded to the nearest 10, national figures are rounded to the nearest 100. 

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data. 

x - unavailable

low - denotes figures based on count that rounds to 0, but is not 0. Figures may not sum to breakdowns due to rounding.

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

CME at census date

• Filename: cme_census.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2022/23 Autumn term to 2023/24 Autumn term
• Content:

  The number of children missing education at the census date in each term. Includes Autumn 2022 to Autumn 2023.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
filter	CME on census date by characteristics
number	Number of CME on census date
pc	Percentage of CME on census date
rate	Rate of CME on census day by population

Footnotes

1. Local authority response rates to the data collection vary by census date. To account for non-response, national and regional figures have been uprated based on local authority pupil populations.
2. Rates of CME are calculated based on ONS mid-year population estimates (opens in a new tab) for children aged 5 to 16 years. The rates for 2023/24 are based on 2022 population estimates.

CME at any point in the academic year

• Filename: cme_academic_year.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2021/22 to 2022/23
• Content:

  The number of children missing education at any point in the academic year. Includes 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic years.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
cme_full_year	CME at any time in academic year

Footnotes

1. Local authority response rates to the data collection vary by census date. To account for non-response, national and regional figures have been uprated based on local authority pupil populations.