This cohort makes up 35% of pupils who miss between two and six weeks every year – typically missing odd days, which has a particularly bad impact on attainment according to the data.
The plea has come from Baroness Barran, Parliamentary under-secretary of state for the school system and student finance.
In a post on social media earlier this month, she wrote: “We need to focus on the 35% of children who miss between 5% and 15% of school annually – roughly 2 to 6 weeks. That is over 1.1m in secondary and over 1.3m in primary. These pupils are typically missing odd days, which our data shows has the worst impact on attainment.”
She adds: “Many schools are focused on the pupils who miss (more than) 50% with complex issues and where a multi-agency response is needed. Very important, but a relatively small group. The point with the 5% to 15% is if a pupil can come in 9 days out of 10, what can the school do to make it 10/10?”
It comes as the latest statistics from the Department for Education, published earlier this month, show progress in tackling the post-pandemic attendance crisis.
National attendance picture
The DfE’s figures show that overall absence rate in the autumn term 2023/24 stood at 6.7%, down from 7.5% a year previously (DfE, 2024).
The percentage of pupils who missed 10% or more of sessions (about 7 days across the term) and so are classified as persistently absent, meanwhile, stood at 19.4%, down from 24.2% a year previously.
However, persistent absence is still a lot worse than pre-pandemic levels of around 11%.
At primary level, overall absence stands at 5.3% (down from 6.3%), while persistent absence stands at 15.4% (down from 20.9%).
At secondary level, overall absence stands at 8.1% (down from 8.8%), while persistent absence stands at 23.4% (down from 27.4%).
However, the figures show an increase in severe absence (pupils missing 50% of sessions) from 1.7% to 2% over the same period.
In primary schools, severe absence increased from 0.7% to 0.8% and in secondaries from 5.8% to 6.2%.
Commenting on the figures, Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the fall in persistent absence was “very encouraging”.
He added: “Schools have put a huge amount of work into encouraging attendance and working with families to identify and remove barriers. The problem is that they are doing this in isolation because local services such as social care, mental health and attendance support have not been sufficiently resourced to keep pace with demand.
“The rate of persistent absence remains much higher than before the pandemic and it is extremely difficult to tackle this problem without more government focus on improving the network of support.”
The 5% to 15% cohort
The 5% to 15% cohort is not one that has been historically tracked by the DfE, but its new attendance data tool allows schools to see more detailed information, including breaking down data into 5% bands.
An analysis from FFT Education Datalab, carried out following Baroness Barran’s intervention, finds that 31.1% of primary and 33.3% of secondary pupils fall into the 5% to 15% category (Benyon, 2024) – with this figure staying constant across year groups.
It shows that the main reason for absence is illness and that pupils with higher absence rates were more likely to be vulnerable – including with higher rates of SEN and eligibility for free school meals.
The analysis confirms the fact that many of the pupils in this cohort are missing odd days, although some are taking longer spells off school.
It states: “In terms of the ‘average’ pupil with an absence rate of 5% to 15%, at primary, the median number of spells off was 5 (vs 2 for the under 5% group and 11 for the 15% to 50% group), and at secondary it was 7 (vs 2 for the under 5% group and 15 for the 15% to 50% group).”
However, the analysis also points out that if we were to discount each pupil’s longest spell of absence then the number in the 5% to 15% category would halve.
It adds: “It is not necessarily the case that these pupils exhibit regular patterns of absence (e.g. missing Friday afternoons). Half of all pupils in the 5% to 15% group over the autumn and spring terms this year are there by virtue of a single spell of absence.”
- Beynon: Pupils with absence rates between 5% and 15%, FFT Education Datalab, May 2024: https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2024/05/pupils-with-absence-rates-between-5-and-15/
- DfE: Autumn term 2023/24: Pupil absence in schools in England, May 2024: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england/2023-24-autumn-term