Truants miss out on half million school days

The latest figures from the Department for Education show the region’s schools have the highest level of unauthorised absence in England.

The Government measures truancy in half days missed.

In Yorkshire schools 958,005 have been missed through truancy in the spring term of this year, according to the statistics released yesterday.

This is 1.19 per cent of half days throughout the term – higher than any other Government region in the country.

Yorkshire also had the highest level of unauthorised absence at secondary school level with 677,240 half days missed – 1.82 per cent compared with a national average level of 1.45 per cent.

Hull has the highest truancy rates of any the 150 education authority areas in England. Pupils in the city’s school missed almost 65,000 half days through absences which were not signed off by schools.

Nationally tens of thousands of pupils skipped lessons without permission each day during the spring term, official figures suggest. England’s schoolchildren missed 1.01 per cent of half days through unauthorised absence.

This is down slightly for the same term in 2010, when the truancy rate stood at 1.12 per cent.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb praised the drop in absence rates, but warned that “absenteeism is still too high”.

“We know that children who are absent for substantial parts of their education fall behind their peers and struggle to catch up,” he said.

“That is why we have changed the threshold on persistent absence to encourage schools to crack down on those pupils who are persistently skipping school.”

He added: “Over the coming months we will be giving stronger powers to schools to send a clear message to pupils and parents that persistent absence is unacceptable.”