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Department for Education · Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes

Severe absence

2024/25 academic year Final

2.4%

Severe absence was 2.4% in 2024/25 academic year, up 0.1 percentage points from 2.3% in 2023/24 academic year.

▲ +0.1 percentage points against 2023/24 academic year (previous period)

  1. Department for Education percentage
  2. 2024/25 academic year
  3. published 4 August 2026
  4. 019d209c-08dc-74b6-9edb-52d521406fcf
  5. row “Absence type=Severe absence; School type=Total”
  6. column “Percentage of pupil enrolments”
  7. cell value 2.38708

2024/25 academic year is the highest figure in the published series: 2.4%. Rule: highest of the 18 periods published here (2006/07 academic year to 2024/25 academic year).

2006/07 academic year to 2024/25 academic year

Severe absence: 2006/07 academic year to 2024/25 academic yearLabourLabourCoalitionCoalitionConservativeConservativeConservativeConservativeLabour0%1%2%20102015202020252006/07 academic year: 1% percent · published 4 August 20262007/08 academic year: 0.9% percent · published 4 August 20262008/09 academic year: 0.8% percent · published 4 August 20262009/10 academic year: 0.7% percent · published 4 August 20262010/11 academic year: 0.7% percent · published 4 August 20262011/12 academic year: 0.6% percent · published 4 August 20262012/13 academic year: 0.6% percent · published 4 August 20262013/14 academic year: 0.6% percent · published 4 August 20262014/15 academic year: 0.6% percent · published 4 August 20262015/16 academic year: 0.6% percent · published 4 August 20262016/17 academic year: 0.7% percent · published 4 August 20262017/18 academic year: 0.8% percent · published 4 August 20262018/19 academic year: 0.8% percent · published 4 August 20262020/21 academic year: 1.1% percent · published 4 August 20262021/22 academic year: 1.7% percent · published 4 August 20262022/23 academic year: 2% percent · published 4 August 20262023/24 academic year: 2.3% percent · published 4 August 20262024/25 academic year: 2.4% percent · published 4 August 2026
Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value

What this measures

The percentage of pupil enrolments that missed 50% or more of their possible sessions in the academic year.

What this doesn’t measure

Children missing from education altogether, who are not on a school roll and so not in this figure.

Important caveat

Figures come from the January school census and cover state-funded schools in England unless the metric says otherwise. A pupil enrolled at more than one school in a year can be counted at each. Absence measures use possible sessions, so a school's timetable affects them; the persistent absence threshold was changed to 10% of sessions from 2015/16 and earlier years are on the old basis.

Revision history

No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.

Source

Publisher
Department for Education
Publication
Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes
Release
Explore Education Statistics: releases to August 2026, published 4 August 2026
Source file
dfe_education.json
File SHA-256
301a1eda429205c90247cc4efad5564351b549d7772715a628d8459e360d8b47
Retrieved
3 September 2026
Sheet
absence
Table
019d209c-08dc-74b6-9edb-52d521406fcf
Row
Absence type=Severe absence; School type=Total
Column
Percentage of pupil enrolments
Cell value
2.38708
Geography
E92000001
Unit
percent
API
/api/metrics/severe_absence_rate · /series · /vintages

Government periods

Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.

Labour 2024–2%2022/23 academic year2.4%2024/25 academic year↑ 17.5%
Conservative 2019–20240.8%2018/19 academic year2%2022/23 academic year↑ 139.6%
Conservative 2017–20190.6%2015/16 academic year0.8%2018/19 academic year↑ 40.7%
Conservative 2015–20170.6%2013/14 academic year0.6%2015/16 academic year↑ 6.6%
Coalition 2010–20150.8%2008/09 academic year0.6%2013/14 academic year↓ 26.7%

Full comparison with chart

Release
Explore Education Statistics: releases to August 2026 · publication page
Last updated
4 August 2026
Next release expected
Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)