Academic year 2020/21

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: 24 March 2022
• Last updated: 24 May 2022

1 update

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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).

9 featured tables

• Persistent absence (10% and 50% of sessions missed), by school type, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Includes the persistent absence rate at 10% and 50% of sessions missed, by school type, 2015/16 to 2020/21

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• Absence by local authority - rates of overall absence, persistent absence and sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances

  Absence by local authority - rates of overall absence, persistent absence and sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances 2020/21

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• Rate of absence by reason and sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, all schools, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Includes the rate of absence by reason, including all authorised and unauthorised reasons, and sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, all schools, 2015/16 to 2020/21

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• Absence rates and rate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, in Pupil referral units, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Includes overall and persistent absence rates and rate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, in Pupil referral units, 2015/16 to 2020/21

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• Overall absence rate and rate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, by school type, 2018/19 Autumn Term to 2020/21 Summer Term

  Includes the overall absence rate and rate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, by school type, 2018/19 Autumn Term to 2020/21 Summer Term

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• Sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances in 2020/21 Academic year, by term

  Includes the number and rate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances in 2020/21 Academic year, by term, plus the overall absence rate

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• National absence rates, all schools - 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Full academic year absence rates 2015/16 to 2020/21, plus rate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, all schools

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• Absence by region - rates of overall absence, persistent absence and sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances

  Absence by region - rates of overall absence, persistent absence and sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances 2020/21

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• Absence reason by term, plus sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, all schools, 2018/19 to 2020/21

  Includes rate of absence by reason by term, plus sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances, all schools, 2018/19 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.

12 data sets available for download

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• 06 - Absence rates by pupil characteristic

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Absence information for the full academic year, by pupil characteristics including SEN, FSM, language, year group, gender and ethnicity for England.

  • Number of rows: 344,316
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate exact
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • School type
  • Time period: 2012/13 to 2020/21

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• 07 - Absence rates by characteristic and local authority district

  Local authority district

  Absence information by local authority district. Includes FSM eligible and FSM6 eligible breakdowns.

  • Number of rows: 17,073
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate exact
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • School type
  • Time period: 2018/19 to 2020/21

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

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Termly absence information 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: 13,597
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised holiday rate
    • Authorised other rate
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2012/13 Autumn term to 2020/21 Summer term

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• 09 - Absence rates by school location - IDACI and urban/rurality

  Local authority, Local authority district, National, Regional

  Absence information by the school National; Regional; Local authority; Local 2016/17 to 2018/19 7 location including the level of depravation and rurality

  • Number of rows: 29,699
  • 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: 2020/21

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• 01 - Absence rates by geographic level

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Absence information for full academic year 2020/21 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: 157,515
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate (persistent absentees only)
    • Authorised holiday rate
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2006/07 to 2020/21

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• 10 - Absence rates for pupils with post looked after arrangements (PLAA)

  National

  Overall absence for all enrolments in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools for pupils with post looked after arrangements

  • Number of rows: 41
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of authorised holiday sessions
  • Filters:
    • Post looked after arrangement
    • School type
  • Time period: 2018/19 to 2020/21

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• 03 - Absence rates as a percentage of possible sessions by band

  National

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

  • 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 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: 2013/14 to 2020/21

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• 08 - Absence rates by pupil residency - IDACI and urban/rurality

  Local authority, Local authority district, National, Regional

  Absence information by the pupil’s residence including the level of deprivation and rurality.

  • Number of rows: 42,232
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of overall absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • IDACI band of pupil residence
    • IDACI/Rurality
    • Rurality band of pupil residence
  • Time period: 2016/17 to 2020/21

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• 04 - Absence rates in pupil referral units (PRUs)

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Absence rates for pupil referral units

  • Number of rows: 3,533
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
    • Number of authorised holiday sessions
  • Time period: 2013/14 to 2020/21

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

  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: 153,644
  • 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 2020/21

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• 05 - Absence rates for four year olds

  Local authority, National, Regional

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

  • Number of rows: 119,260
  • Indicators:
    • Number of overall absence sessions
    • Number of pupil enrolments
    • Number of schools
  • Filters:
    • School type
  • Time period: 2012/13 to 2020/21

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

  National

  Absence information at national level for the full academic year, by each term, by pupil characteristics including SEN, FSM, language, year group, gender and ethnicity for England.

  • Number of rows: 1,493
  • Indicators:
    • Authorised absence rate
    • Authorised absence rate exact
    • Number of authorised absence sessions
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • School type
  • Time period: 2018/19 Autumn term to 2020/21 Summer 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: 2020/21’ 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. 

‘z’ Not applicable 

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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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If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

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