Latest DfE data shows big jump in absence rates
Latest Department for Education (DfE) figures show absence rates rose in the 2021/22 academic year, with the overall absence rate standing at 7.6 per cent, and with more than a fifth of pupils classed as persistently absent (pupils are identified as a persistent absentee if they miss 10 per cent or more of their possible sessions). The overall absence rate in the 2020/21 academic year had been 4.6 per cent.
Illness was a major driver of overall absence, at 4.4 per cent across the academic year. This is likely to have included a significant number of pupils who were absent either with Covid symptoms or because they had tested positive. Unlike in 2019/20 and 2020/21 schools were not advised to record such covid-related absences under a separate code. Prior to the covid pandemic the overall absence rate had typically sat in the 4 to 5 per cent range. In 2018/19, the last full academic year prior to the pandemic, it stood at 4.7 per cent.
Some groupings of pupils were more likely to be persistently absent than others. Demographically, persistent absence was highest among pupils of Irish Traveller heritage (71.7 per cent of pupils persistently absent) and Gypsy and Roma pupils (64.9 per cent), and lowest among Chinese (6.2 per cent) and Black African pupils (10.4 per cent). 37.2 per cent of pupils who were eligible for free school meals were persistently absent in 2021/22, compared to 17.5 per cent of pupils who were not eligible. The persistent absence rate stood at 32 per cent of pupils receiving SEND support, rising to 36.9 per cent for those pupils with a Statement/EHCP.
Meanwhile older pupils had higher persistent absence rates than younger ones, with 36 per cent of those in sixth form, and 32.2 per cent of Year 11 pupils persistently absent. The figure for Year 3 pupils was just 16.6 per cent. The North East was the region with the highest persistent absence rate at 24.7 per cent, with Outer London the lowest at 19.6 per cent. In the South East the rate was 22 per cent of pupils.
Attendance appears to have worsened as the academic year progressed, with the overall absence rate of 6.7 per cent in the autumn term rising to 7.9 per cent in the spring term, and then nudging up again to 8 per cent for the summer term. The increase in the Summer term was driven by an increase in absence in secondary schools, while primary and special school absence rates decreased from Spring to Summer. However unauthorised holidays do not appear to have played a role in the overall increase, with the rate of 0.4 per cent very similar to that recorded in the pre-pandemic period.
Earlier this year MPs on the education select committee launched an inquiry into rising rates of persistent absence, and following a call for evidence their report is expected later this year. Responding to the latest figures a DfE spokesperson said: ‘We work closely with schools, trusts, governing bodies and local authorities to identify pupils who are at risk of becoming or who are persistently absent and are working together to support those children to return to regular and consistent education’, adding that the ‘vast majority’ of children were in school and learning.