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 14 July 2023. 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.
Overall absence during the 2022/23 academic year to date was 7.5%. During the Autumn term the overall absence rate was 7.7% and 7.1% during the Spring term.
Absence peaked at 14.1%, in the final full week of the Autumn term. This was up from the start of the academic year when it was 5.3% and the previous peak in the week prior to the Autumn half term when it was 7.3%. Absence rates fell at the start of the Spring term and were relatively stable between 6.0% and 8.2% throughout the term. Since the start of the Summer term, absence has been similar to that in the Spring term. Absence in the Summer term previously peaked at 8.8% in the week prior to Summer half-term, and was 9.9% in the week commencing 26 June, coinciding with Eid al-Adha celebrations from Wednesday 28 June. Absence was was 8.0% in the most recent week.
The increase in illness absence at the end of the Autumn term was in line with increases in rates of seasonal flu and other seasonal respiratory illnesses, as shown in UK Health Security Authority data (opens in a new tab).
Although it decreased following the Autumn term, illness absence (which includes positive COVID cases) remained higher than pre-pandemic levels, at 3.7% during Spring term compared with around 2.5% pre-pandemic.
Persistent absence (pupils who miss 10% or more of their possible sessions) has also been impacted by high illness rates.
The persistent absence rate for the year to date is currently 22.0%. This represents a fall from 24.9% in Autumn term, driven by a decrease in absence in the Spring term (where persistent absence was 21.0%).
UK Health Security Authority data (opens in a new tab) shows that a number of illnesses all peaked at around the same time in December. Typically, illnesses are more spread across the season. Between the end of November and the end of December 2022, persistent absence increased from 21.7% to 24.9%. In Autumn 2022, 13.4% of pupils were persistently absent solely due to illness, a large increase on 5% in Autumn 2019. Although it decreased following the Autumn term, illness absence rates during Spring term were still higher than pre-pandemic levels and 9.6% of pupils were persistently absent solely due to illness during Spring 2023.
Whilst persistent absence in Autumn 2022 was higher than the previous year, driven by illness, there was a sharp fall in pupils persistently not attending. This reflects that in Autumn 2020 and Autumn 2021, pupils were being recorded as not attending due to reasons related to coronavirus (e.g. where isolating). Including these sessions shows that there has been a drop in pupils not attending 10% or more sessions overall, from 44.6% in 2020, 32.2% in 2021 to 24.9% in 2022.
Free school meals (FSM)
The overall absence rate for pupils who are eligible for free school meals is 11.3% across the year to date. This compares to 6.1% for those pupils who were not eligible for free school meals.
37.5% of pupils who were eligible for free school meals were persistently absent across the year to date, compared to 16.5% of pupils who were not eligible.
Special educational needs (SEN)
The overall absence rate for pupils with an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) is 13.2% across the year to date. This compares to 11.0% for pupils with SEN support and 6.8% with no identified SEN.
37.5% of pupils with an EHCP were persistently absent in this period, compared to 33.1% for pupils with SEN support and 19.9% for pupils with no identified SEN.
Gender
The overall absence rate for boys was 7.4% and for girls was 7.5%, while persistent absence was 22.3% for girls and 21.7% for boys respectively.
Users should be aware of the following:
- Response rate - 84% 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: 86% of state-funded primary schools, 77% of state-funded secondary schools and 74% 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.