Access the Pupil attendance and absence in schools in England: data dashboard (opens in a new tab) here
Data for the year to date relates to the period from 12 September 2022 to 25 November 2022. Data is available in the pupil attendance dashboard (opens in a new tab) and the underlying data available on this page (see “Explore data and files”). The dashboard displays attendance and absence headline figures, and reasons for absence at national, regional and local authority geographic levels. Data is available across primary, secondary and special schools and can be broken down by individual school type.
Trends across the year
Absence in the week commencing 21 November was 8.8%, up from the start of term (week commencing 12 September) when it was 5.4% and the previous peak in the week prior to half term (week commencing 17 October) when it was 7.4%. These changes are mostly driven by illness absence, with illness absence increasing from 2.6% to 5.7% from week commencing 12 September to week commencing 21 November. This is in line with recent increases in rates of seasonal flu and other seasonal respiratory illnesses (opens in a new tab).
Attendance rates
The data shows that the attendance rate across the period from 12 September 2022 to 25 November 2022 was 93.3%, giving an overall absence rate of 6.7%.
By school type, the attendance rate across the year to date was:
- 94.5% in state-funded primary schools
- 91.9% in state-funded secondary schools
- 87.9% in state-funded special schools
Absence rates
By school type, the authorised absence rate across the year to date was:
- 4.1% in state-funded primary schools
- 5.3% in state-funded secondary schools
- 9.4% in state-funded special schools
By school type, the unauthorised absence rate across the year to date was:
- 1.4% in state-funded primary schools
- 2.8% in state-funded secondary schools
- 2.8% in state-funded special schools
Overall absence has increased the most in secondary schools (from 6.4% to 10.3%) followed by special schools (from 10.6% to 14.2%). Absence in primary schools has risen from 4.4% to 7.5%.
Users should be aware of the following:
- Response rate - 75% of schools have opted-in to submitting data (though note that this has varied across the year), therefore national figures are estimates. Across school types this was: 77% of state-funded primary schools, 69% of state-funded secondary schools and 64% of state-funded special schools.
- Estimates for non-response - In recognition that response rates are not equal across school types and, therefore, not representative of the total school population, the total rates for all schools has been weighted based on the Spring 2022 school census.
- Reporting lag - Schools update their registers continually and attendance codes change, resulting in absence rates for a particular day to decrease over time. Analysis of data from the Summer 2022 term suggests that this could be a decrease in the absence rate of around 1 percentage point before settling down. Historical figures will be recalculated in each publication.
If you are a school that has not yet signed up to share your data, please visit Share your daily school attendance data (opens in a new tab) for more information. This will also give you, your local authority and your multi-academy trust (if applicable) access to daily attendance reports (opens in a new tab) to help identify pupils needing attendance support earlier.