Autumn and spring term 2020/21

Pupil absence in schools in England: autumn and spring terms

Pupil absence, including overall, authorised and unauthorised absence and persistent absence by reason and pupil characteristics for the autumn and spring terms

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This publication has been superseded by Pupil absence in schools in England

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• Produced by: Department for Education
• Published: 21 October 2021
• Last updated: 27 October 2021

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• Featured tables

  Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by users and can be adapted to switch between different categories.

• Data sets: download or create tables

  Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

• Data guidance

  Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

• Data catalogue

  Alternatively use our data catalogue to search and filter for specific data sets from this release or our entire library, providing full data summaries, data previews and access to API data sets.

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Featured tables

Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by some users (such as local councils, regional government or government policy teams) and can be adapted to switch between different categories (such as different geographies, time periods or characteristics where available).

5 featured tables

• 01 - Absence rates by school type - Autumn and Spring combined - 2016/17 to 2020/21

  Overall, authorised and unauthorised absence rates, non attendance due to covid-19 rates and persistent absence, by school type, from 2016/17 to 2020/21

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• 05 - Absence rates in Pupil Referral Units, Autumn and Spring combined, 2016/17 to 2020/21

  Overall, authorised and unauthorised absence rates in Pupil Referral Units, Autumn and Spring combined, 2016/17 to 2020/21 (including AP academies and AP free schools)

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• 04 - Percentage of pupils who were persistent absentees, Autumn and Spring combined, 2016/17 to 2020/21

  Percentage of pupil enrolments who were persistent absentees, by school type, Autumn and Spring combined, 2016/17 to 2020/21

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• 02 - Absence rates by school type by term - 2018/19 Autumn Term to 2020/21 Spring Term

  Overall, authorised and unauthorised absence rates, non attendance due to covid-19 rates and persistent absence, by school type, by term from Autumn 2018 to Spring 2021

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• 03 - Absence reason rates, all schools, Autumn and Spring combined, 2016/17 to 2020/21

  Absence rates (sessions of absence as a percentage of possible sessions) by reason for absence, Autumn and Spring terms combined, 2016/17 to 2020/21

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Data sets: download or create tables

Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

8 data sets available for download

Download all (ZIP)

• 06 - Absence rates by pupil characteristic - Autumn and Spring combined

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Absence information for Autumn and Spring term combined by pupil characteristics such as age, gender and ethnicity for England.

  • Number of rows: 129,335
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate exact
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • School type
  • Time period: 2016/17 Autumn and spring term to 2020/21 Autumn and spring term

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• 04 - Absence rates in pupil referral units (PRUs) - Autumn and Spring combined

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Absence rates for pupil referral units

  • Number of rows: 1,070
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of authorised holiday sessions
  • Time period: 2013/14 Autumn and spring term to 2020/21 Autumn and spring term

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• 03 - Absence rates as a percentage of possible sessions by band - Autumn and Spring combined

  National

  The number of pupil enrolments by overall, authorised and unauthorised absence percentage point bands.

  • Number of rows: 1,633
  • Indicators:
    • Number of all pupil enrolments that fall into that per cent band for authorised absence
    • Number of all pupil enrolments that fall into that per cent band for non-attendance due to coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Number of all pupil enrolments that fall into that per cent band for overall absence
  • Filters:
    • Absence percentage band
    • School type
  • Time period: 2016/17 Autumn and spring term to 2020/21 Autumn and spring term

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• 06 (termly) - Absence rates by pupil characteristic - Termly data

  National

  Termly absence information by pupil characteristics such as age, gender and ethnicity for England.

  • Number of rows: 429
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate exact
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • School type
  • Time period: 2020/21 Autumn term to 2020/21 Spring term

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• 01 - Absence rates by geographic level - Autumn and Spring combined

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Absence information for both Autumn and Spring term combined for all enrolments in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools including information on overall absence, persistent absence and reason for absence for pupils aged 5-15. Includes school level data.

  • Number of rows: 88,037
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised holiday rate
    • Authorised other rate
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2016/17 Autumn and spring term to 2020/21 Autumn and spring term

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• 02 - Enrolments with one or more session of absence, including by reason for absence - Autumn and Spring combined

  Local authority, National, Regional

  The number of enrolments with one or more session of absence, including by reason for absence. Includes school level data.

  • Number of rows: 87,386
  • Indicators:
    • Number of enrolments with at least one absence session due to agreed extended family holiday
    • Number of enrolments with at least one absence session due to agreed family holiday
    • Number of enrolments with at least one absence session due to arriving late
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2016/17 Autumn and spring term to 2020/21 Autumn and spring term

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• 01 (termly) - Absence rates by geographic level - Termly data

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Termly absence information for Autumn and Spring term for all enrolments in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools including information on overall absence, persistent absence and reason for absence for pupils aged 5-15.

  • Number of rows: 17,512
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised holiday rate
    • Authorised other rate
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2012/13 Autumn term to 2020/21 Spring term

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• 05 - Absence rates for four year olds - Autumn and Spring combined

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Overall absence for all enrolments in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools for pupils aged 4

  • Number of rows: 67,955
  • Indicators:
    • Number of overall absence sessions
    • Number of pupil enrolments
    • Number of schools
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2016/17 Autumn and spring term to 2020/21 Autumn and spring term

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Data guidance

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

Description

This document describes the data included in the ‘Pupil absence in schools in England: 2018/19’ National Statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in new tab). The methodology 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

This release provides information on the levels of overall, authorised and unauthorised absence in:

• state-funded primary schools 
• state-funded secondary schools
• state-funded special schools
• pupil referral units

It includes information on: 

• reasons for absence 
• persistent absentees 
• pupil characteristics 
• absence by term 

The information is based on pupil level absence data collected via the school census.

File formats and conventions

Rounding 

This dataset has not had suppression applied. 

Conventions 

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data. 

‘:’ Not applicable. 

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Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Pupil absence in schools in England: autumn and spring terms statistics and data:

School census statistics team

Email: schools.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Sean Gibson

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Telephone: 020 7783 8300

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