Persistent truanting continues to decline

However, the data published by the Department for Education reveals that the rate of decline in persistent truanting is slowing and that the number of overall children absent from school rose for the first time in five years.

The DfE figures show that over the five half terms (the summer term is not counted) of 2012/13, 4.6 per cent of pupils were persistently absent from school, 0.6 percentage points lower than the 5.2 per cent rate in 2011/12.

The declines for the previous three years were 0.6 per cent, 0.7 per cent and 0.9 per cent, suggesting that local authorities and schools are finding it tougher to tackle a hard core of persistent truants.  

Persistent absence is defined as a child missing 15 per cent of school time in a year.

Persistent absentees accounted for 22.4 per cent of all pupil absences from schools, however, overall absence rates showed a 0.1 percentage points rise in 2012/13 to 5.2 per cent. In contrast, overall absence rates fell from 5.8 per cent in 2010/11 to 5.1 per cent in 2011/12.

The data also reveals that absence levels for pupils receiving free school meals are significantly higher than those not in receipt of them – 7.6 per cent compared to 4.7 per cent. In addition, the gap gets wider when just looking at unauthorised absence: for pupils receiving free school meals the rate is 2.4 per cent compared to 0.8 per cent for children not in receipt of free school meals.

Disadvantaged groups are also more likely to have higher overall absence rates. Pupils living in the most deprived areas were 1.5 times more likely to be absent than pupils living in the least deprived areas; the overall absence rate for Irish Travellers was 21.4 per cent; while for pupils with a special educational need the absence rate was 8.2 per cent, compared to 4.8 per cent overall.