Two and a Half Times More Children in England Are Absent From School Than Before the Lockdowns

The total number of students consistently absent has surged to 1.89 million, or roughly a fifth of all pupils. This figure is more than double the pre-pandemic tally of students who frequently skipped school. The Times has more.

More than a quarter of secondary school pupils are regularly missing school, new figures have shown.

The children’s watchdog warned that such absences could “irrevocably break the social contract between schools and families”.

Persistent absence – which is defined as missing at least 10% of school time – hit 28% in secondary schools in England in the 2022-23 academic year, according to figures released by the Department for Education.

The total number of persistently absent pupils rose again to 1.89 million, about 20% of pupils and two and a half times the number that regularly missed school before the pandemic.

The number of pupils who qualify for free school meals who are regularly missing school has tripled from pre-pandemic levels, to 765,000, analysis by the Times shows. For those poorer pupils in secondary schools, persistent absence rates have reached 47%, up from 28% before the pandemic.

The department attributed many of the absences to higher rates of illness, especially during the flu wave at the end of term last autumn.

However, the Education Policy Institute noted that disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs were particularly affected.

Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, told the Times: “The new figures out today lay bare the scale of the school attendance crisis. Three years on from the pandemic, school absences remain at unprecedented highs.

“We are failing to get children back to school. I am concerned that if further action is not taken, we risk normalising disengagement from education and irrevocably breaking the social contract between schools and families.”

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: Teacher Paul Sutton thinks the reason for the sharp rise in persistent absentee-ism is because children lost confidence in teachers after seeing them behave idiotically during the pandemic. His blog post on this is worth reading.