Access the Pupil attendance and absence in schools in England: data dashboard here
Data for Autumn term 2023/24 relates to the period from 11 September 2023 to 15 December 2023.
The overall absence rate for the Autumn term was 6.8%, down from the Autumn 2022/23 census absence figure of 7.5%.
Across the Autumn term the persistent absence rate (pupils who miss 10% or more of their possible sessions) was 20.1%. This is a decrease from the Autumn 2022/23 census persistent absence rate of 24.2%.
Absence increased towards the end of the Autumn term. In the week commencing 11 December, absence was 8.4%, up from the start of term when it was 4.9% and previous peaks in the week commencing 25 September (6.8%) and the week immediately prior to half term (7.1%). The increase in absence prior to half-term and the end of term is in line with weekly patterns seen during 2022/23 and in historical attendance data.
Changes in absence during the Autumn term have mainly been driven by illness absence, which was 4.5% in the week commencing 11 December, up from the start of term when it was 2.0% and the previous peak of 3.8% in the week commencing 25 September
Unauthorised absence was fairly stable around 2.0% across the Autumn term, with peaks in the week immediately prior to half term when it was 2.5% and in the final week of term when it was 2.8%.
Free school meals (FSM)
The overall absence rate for pupils who are eligible for free school meals was 10.4% in the Autumn term. This compares to 5.5% for those pupils who were not eligible for free school meals.
33.0% of pupils who were eligible for free school meals were persistently absent in the Autumn term, compared to 15.7% of pupils who were not eligible.
Special educational needs (SEN)
The overall absence rate for pupils with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan was 12.5% in the Autumn term. This compares to 10.3% for pupils with SEN support and 6.1% with no identified SEN.
34.7% of pupils with an EHC plan were persistently absent in the Autumn term, compared to 29.9% for pupils with SEN support and 18.2% for pupils with no identified SEN.
Sex
The overall absence rate during the Autumn term was 6.8% for girls and 6.7% for boys.
The persistent absence rate during the Autumn term was 20.3% for girls and 20.0% for boys.
Users should be aware of the following:
- Response rate - 86% of schools shared data in the most recent week (though this has varied throughout the period of data collection), therefore national figures are estimates. Across school types this was: 88% of state-funded primary schools, 82% of state-funded secondary schools and 77% 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 2023 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.
- Data for the latest release reflects school registers as at 20 January 2024, with 8 days retrospection included. Typically this release includes 10-11 days retrospection and therefore data may be subject to greater retrospective changes in future releases.
- Comparisons against Autumn 2022/23 use census data published in the Pupil absence in schools in England series. This data is collected on a termly basis from all schools and therefore reflects a more complete dataset than the daily data used for these fortnightly pupil attendance statistics which give an indicative figure on absence.
If you are a school that has not yet signed up to share your data, please visit ‘Share your daily school attendance data’ for more information. This will also give you, your local authority and your multi-academy trust (if applicable) access to daily attendance reports to help identify pupils needing attendance support earlier.