Pupil attendance in schools
Fortnightly data on pupil attendance, including by reason, phase and geography.
- Release type
- Produced by
- Department for Education
- Published
Background information
These figures are derived from regular data automatically submitted to the Department for Education (DfE) by participating schools. The data is submitted on a daily basis and includes the attendance codes (opens in new tab) for each pupil on their registers during the morning and afternoon sessions.
Figures relate to the attendance of 5 to 15 year old (i.e. compulsory school age) pupils in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools in England.
These figures are published as Official Statistics to give an indicative figure for the absence rate during the 2025/26 academic year, from the 08 September 2025. For the full 2024/25 academic year and termly pupil absence data, including by characteristics please see this historical publication.
Prior to the 2025/26 academic year, these statistics were labelled as Official Statistics in Development. The change to Official Statistics reflects improvements in data quality and coverage following the introduction of mandatory school attendance data sharing. We are now confident that the statistics meet the required standards of quality, trustworthiness, and value as set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Further details about this change can be found in the methodology note. We welcome feedback on these statistics via the details in the “contact us” section below.
The pupil attendance dashboard (opens in new tab) will be updated fortnightly, providing aggregate metrics on overall absence and reasons for absence estimated at national, regional and local authority level only. Due to the timeliness of the data and that they are based on a subset of schools, figures are estimates that we expect to change as registers are adjusted. They should be viewed as an early indicator for the more detailed but less frequent Accredited Official Statistics on pupil absence (which include school level breakdowns). The Accredited Official Statistics are updated termly, with the latest data published published on 7 August 2025 relating to the 2024/25 Autumn term, including data on characteristics.
From the start of the 2024/25 academic year, it became mandatory for schools to share attendance data (opens in new tab) with the DfE. If you are a school that is not already sharing your daily attendance data, you need to approve this in your Wonde portal. This will also give you, your local authority and your multi-academy trust (if applicable) access to daily attendance reports (opens in new tab) to help identify pupils needing attendance support earlier.
Schools can use the ‘Compare your attendance (opens in new tab)’ dashboard to compare with other schools in the local authority. This has been updated to show data for this current academic year. Use it to compare absence and unauthorised absence for your school, as well as special educational needs and free school meals pupils.
Headline facts and figures
This release covers the 2025/26 academic year to date up to 12 September 2025.
The attendance rate (proportion of possible sessions attended) was 95.21% across all schools in the week commencing 08 September 2025. The absence rate was, therefore, 4.79% across all schools.
By school type, the absence rates across the week commencing 08 September 2025 were:
- 3.80% in state-funded primary schools (2.35% authorised and 1.45% unauthorised)
- 5.67% in state-funded secondary schools (3.23% authorised and 2.43% unauthorised)
- 10.33% in state-funded special schools (7.12% authorised and 3.21% unauthorised)
Absence was 0.02 percentage points higher across all schools in the week commencing 08 September 2025 than in the equivalent week in the last academic year (week commencing 09 September 2024). This has been driven by a 0.07 percentage point increase in authorised absence and a 0.05 percentage point decrease in unauthorised absence.
Latest data - week commencing 08 September 2025
Access the Pupil attendance and absence in schools in England: data dashboard (opens in new tab) here.
The latest data relates to the week commencing 08 September 2025 and is available in the pupil attendance dashboard (opens in new tab). Data is collected on a daily basis and data for the interim weeks between publications is included in year-to-date figures and is available on a daily and weekly basis in 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.
The data shows that the attendance rate across the week for all schools was 95.21%, giving an overall absence rate of 4.79%. The absence rate varied across the week with a low of 4.54% on Wednesday, and a peak 5.49% on Friday. The peak in absence on a Friday is in line with weekly patterns seen during 2024/25 and in historical attendance data.
Users should be aware of the following:
- Response rate - Of schools participating in the School Census, 98% provided information on the latest full day of data (12 September 2025). Therefore national figures are estimates. Across school types this was: 98% of state-funded primary schools, 98% of state-funded secondary schools and 97% of state-funded special schools. The response rate may vary at certain points of the year due to different term dates. It also became mandatory for schools to share attendance data with the DfE from the start of the 2024/25 academic year, meaning the number of schools reporting may change over time.
- Reporting lag - Schools update their registers continually and attendance codes change, resulting in absence rates for particular days to decrease over time. Analysis of data from the Summer 2022 term suggests that the absence rate could decrease around 1 percentage point before settling down. Historical figures from week 37 onwards will be recalculated in each publication.
First week of the 2025/26 academic year
Attendance and absence rates by day and school type for the week commencing 01 September 2025 are available in the data catalogue. In recognition of the uncertainty around inset days, reporting lag and reduced response rate, rates have been rounded to 0 decimal places.
Users should be aware of the following:
- Response rate - The lower response rates reflect how some schools operate inset days on their first days back and may not have turned on their school registers. Overall, the response rate on Monday 01 September was 37%, and 95% on Friday 05 September.
- Inset days and phased returns - Schools may run inset days on the first days back of a new term. Additionally, some - particularly secondary schools - may use phased returns, which see individual year groups return a day ahead of others. The data allows us to infer when schools are operating this way and the figures presented only consider pupils who were expected to attend on the day.
- Reporting lag - Schools update their registers continually and attendance codes change, resulting in absence rates for particular days to decrease over time.
Contact us
If you have a specific enquiry about Pupil attendance in schools statistics and data:
School Census Statistics Team
Email: schools.statistics@education.gov.ukContact name: School Census Statistics Team
Press office
If you have a media enquiry:
Telephone: 020 7783 8300
Public enquiries
If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:
Phone: 0370 000 2288
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Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm (closed on bank holidays)