Number of pupils in Herefordshire Schools persistently absent since 2019
Case reference FOI2023/01911
Published 5 December 2023
Request
I would like to know how many pupils in total in schools overseen by Herefordshire Council have been persistently absent, i.e. recorded as missing more than one day in ten, in each half-term since 2019 inclusive, both in number and as a percentage of the total number of pupils, with the figures for primary and secondary schools in the county tallied separately.
I would like the above information to be provided to me in electronic form.
Response
I would like to know how many pupils in total in schools overseen by Herefordshire Council have been persistently absent, i.e. recorded as missing more than one day in ten, in each half-term since 2019 inclusive, both in number and as a percentage of the total number of pupils, with the figures for primary and secondary schools in the county tallied separately.
I would like the above information to be provided to me in electronic form.
Data on pupil absence from school is collected as part of the termly school census by the Department for Education (DfE).
DfE publishes termly pupil absence data and statistics via the following 3 National Statistics releases each year:
- autumn term data and statistics - published in May
- autumn and spring terms data and statistics - published in October
- full year data and statistics - published in March
With increased demand for statistics and data to measure the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department for Education had to change its data gathering and release practices, focusing efforts on priority analysis and statistics. The autumn and spring 2019/20 and full year 2019/20 releases were cancelled.
Only the full year absence release gives a definitive view of pupil absence.
Termly publications can be affected significantly by term length with findings from these releases for indicative purposes only and the results should be treated with caution.
Data for every local authority in England can be found on GOV.UK.
The latest published academic year relates to 2021-22.
Pupil absence in schools in England: 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Further to this the latest published data relates to Autumn and Spring terms of 2022-23 - however please note the point above: Only the full year absence release gives a definitive view of pupil absence.
For your ease of reference please see the attached spreadsheet. The service area have extracted the full academic years 2018-19, 2020-21 and 2021-22 and reported the number of enrolments that missed 10% or more or their sessions possible (enrolments_pa_10_exact). This figure is also represented as a percentage of total enrolments (enrolments_pa_10_exact_percent).
As the 2022-23 academic year is not yet published we have also provided the latest published data which includes the autumn term 2022 plus spring term 2023.
In all cases, data has been reported for both primary and secondary school types
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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