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Written question asked by Tim Loughton (Conservative) on Tuesday, 2 February 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 5 February 2010. It was answered by Lord Coaker (Labour) on Wednesday, 17 March 2010 on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Truancy

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in how many (a) primary and (b) secondary schools more than (i) 10, (ii) 20, (iii) 30 and (iv) 40 per cent. of pupils were classified as persistent absentees in (A) 1997 and (B) the latest year for which figures are available.
Answer

[holding answer 5 February 2010]: Information on persistent absentees is not available for 1997. The latest available information for 2007-08 is shown in the table.

Primary¹ and secondary¹, ² schools: Number of schools by the percentage of persistent absentees³, 4, 2007-08, England
Number of schools
Percentage of school enrolments who are persistent absentees5, 6: Primary schools¹ Secondary schools¹, ²
More than 10% 65 299
More than 20% 8 11
More than 30% 3 0
More than 40% 1 0
¹ Includes middle schools as deemed.
² Includes maintained secondary schools, city technology colleges and academies (including all-through academies).
³ Includes schools with at least one enrolment aged between five and 15.
4 Persistent absentees are defined as having 64 or more sessions of absence (authorised and unauthorised) during the year, typically over 20 per cent. overall absence rate.
5 The number of persistent absentees expressed 86 a percentage of the total number of enrolments.
6 Those schools counted in the 'more than 40 per cent.' category are also included in all the lower categories. Similarly, for the 'more than 30 per cent.' and 'more than 20 per cent.' categories.
Source:
School Census

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
507 c919W; 316074
Session
2009-10
Subjects
Truancy
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk