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.