National Attendance Stats

Government National Attendance Data Publication 

The Government used to publish (pre-COVID) information related to school attendance statistics three times per year.  The timings are as follows:

• March (the most important as it gives information on the full previous academic year and these figures become the definitive comparator for the current academic year)

• May (the least important as it gives information only on the first term of the current academic year - can indicate trends though)

• October (gives information on the first two terms of the previous academic year.  Historically whatever trends have been reported here go on to be true for the full academic year)

NOTE that no national attendance data was published for 2019/20 apart from the autumn term 2019 data.  This is due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, during the COVID-19 pandemic the DfE developed a different way of reporting national data, which was borne out of the need to have more up-to-date attendance data to monitor the effect of the pandemic.  This system has now been refined so that the vast majority of schools now report their attendance data automatically via their management information system on a weekly basis.  This data is then reported on a fortnightly basis, giving attendance by sector for the previous week and also for the year-to-date.  

Both sets of data have their merits, the formal data (produced termly on a retrospective basis) is 100% accurate as it is based on a census and the fortnightly data is timely but accuracy cannot be guaranteed.  Because the formal attendance data is based on attendance during the year prior to the current academic year, it is going to be of limited comparative value for at least another year, until we have a full academic year where attendance has not been directly affected by the pandemic.

Both sets of attendance data described above can be downloaded by clicking on this link.   The amount of information available changes dependant upon which release it is, with the greatest breakdown of figures given in the March release.  Note that the way the government have calculated attendance rates and persistent absence rates have changed over time (but have been stable for the last few years) so do not try and compare current rates with more than a few years ago.  You can find out more details of how the statistics are prepared by going to the bottom of the page and clicking on 'methodology' or you can click here to access this directly.

Full year attendance data for 2022/23 from fortnightly DfE update information

The data shows that the attendance rate across the academic year 2022/23 was 92.5%. The absence rate was, therefore, 7.5% across all schools.

By school type, the absence rates across the academic year 2022/23 were:

• 6.0% in state-funded primary schools (4.3% authorised and 1.7% unauthorised)

• 9.3% in state-funded secondary schools (5.8% authorised and 3.5% unauthorised)

• 13.1% in state-funded special schools (10.0% authorised and 3.1% unauthorised)

By pupil characteristics, the absence rates across the academic year 2022/23 were:

• 11.4% for pupils who are eligible for free school meals and 6.2% for pupils who were not eligible for free school meals

• 13.3% for pupils with an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP), 11.1% for pupils with SEN support and 6.9% with no identified SEN

• 7.4% for boys and 7.6% for girls

Across the academic year 2022/23, 22.3% of pupil enrolments missed 10% or more of their possible sessions and are therefore identified as persistently absent. By school type, the persistent absence rate across the academic year 2022/23 was:

• 17.2% in state-funded primary schools

• 28.3% in state-funded secondary schools

• 38.7% in state-funded special schools

There were national teacher strikes on 1 February, 15 March, 16 March, 27 April, 2 May, 5 July and 7 July and regional teacher strikes on 28 February, 1 March and 2 March.