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Schools urged to focus attendance efforts on the 2.4 million students who miss 5% to 15% of school

Schools have been urged to focus their attendance efforts on those pupils who are missing between 5% and 15% of sessions.
Image: Adobe Stock

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.”

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