Stay-away children make region stand out in list of shame

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League tables in full

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A table of 200 schools with the largest levels of persistent absence in the country will include 34 from the across the region. Pupils are classed as persistent absentees if they miss more than a fifth of their

education – the equivalent of a day a week – through truancy or authorised absence such as illness or being taken on holiday during term time.

League tables are expected to show the Ridings School in Halifax, which has now closed, had the worst record in Yorkshire and the fifth worst across England last year. Almost a quarter of pupils at the Calderdale school missed a fifth of their education at 23.4 per cent during the 2008/09 academic year.

Sir Henry Cooper School, in Hull, will also be named in the nation's worst 10 with 21.2 per cent of pupils being classed as persistent absentees.

Halifax had two of three worst schools in Yorkshire with Park Lane also seeing more than one in five pupils missing a fifth of their school lessons.

South Leeds High which has since closed to become an academy and City of Leeds School and Primrose High,which could also make way for academies in Leeds, are also set to feature on a list of the country's worst performers. The region has 12 schools among the worst 50 secondaries in England for persistent absence – including three academies which were opened to transform standards at struggling schools. All 12 saw at least 15 per cent of their pupils regularly missing out on their education.