Academic year 2018/19

Pupil absence in schools in England

Pupil absence, including overall, authorised and unauthorised absence and persistent absence by reason and pupil characteristics for the full academic year.

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• Produced by: Department for Education
• Published: 26 March 2020

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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.

• Supporting files

  Supporting files provide an area for teams to supply non-standard files for download by users where required.

• 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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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.

12 data sets available for download

Download all (ZIP)

• Absence by geography

  Local authority, National, Regional

  • Number of rows: 285,264
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate of persistent absentees
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2006/07 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence by Local Authority by characteristics

  Local authority

  • Number of rows: 259,841
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate exact
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • School type
  • Time period: 2012/13 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence by Local Authority District by characteristics

  Local authority district

  • Number of rows: 26,231
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate exact
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • School type
  • Time period: 2016/17 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence by percent bands

  National

  • Number of rows: 2,857
  • 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 overall absence
    • Number of all pupil enrolments that fall into that per cent band for unauthorised absence
  • Filters:
    • Absence percentage band
    • School type
  • Time period: 2012/13 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence by PLAA

  National

  • Number of rows: 21
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of authorised holiday sessions
  • Filters:
    • School type
    • Type of Post Looked After Arrangements
  • Time period: 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence by pupil residency

  Local authority, Local authority district, National, Regional

  • Number of rows: 32,046
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of overall absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • IDACI band of pupil residence
    • Rurality band of pupil residence
    • School type
  • Time period: 2016/17 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence by school location

  Local authority, Local authority district, National, Regional

  • Number of rows: 89,133
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of overall absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • IDACI band of school location
    • Rurality band of school location
    • School type
  • Time period: 2016/17 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence by term

  Local authority, National, Regional

  • Number of rows: 11,633
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of authorised holiday sessions
  • Filters:
    • School type
    • Term
  • Time period: 2012/13 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence for 4 year olds

  Local authority, National, Regional

  • Number of rows: 118,405
  • Indicators:
    • Number of overall absence sessions
    • Number of pupil enrolments
    • Number of schools
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2012/13 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Absence in Pupil Referral Units

  Local authority, National, Regional

  • Number of rows: 3,040
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of authorised holiday sessions
  • Time period: 2013/14 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Enrolments with one or more session of absence

  Local authority, National, Regional

  • Number of rows: 152,875
  • 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: 2012/13 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

• National absence by characteristics

  National

  • Number of rows: 1,838
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate exact
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • School type
  • Time period: 2012/13 to 2018/19

  Data set information page
  Create table

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Supporting files

Supporting files provide an area for teams to supply non-standard files for download by users where required.

2 supporting data files

• Pupil absence in schools metadata guidance

  Download (pdf, 250 Kb)

• Pupil absence in schools pre-release access list

  Download (pdf, 35 Kb)

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Contact us

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

Attendance and exclusions statistics team

Email: schools.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Attendance and exclusions statistics team

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Telephone: 020 7783 8300

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