It will likely come as no surprise to anyone that in order to do well at school, a pupil needs to be in class regularly - making the most of their education for the best possible outcomes.
This week, the Government released the overall absence and attendance figures for the full 2023/24 school year. Despite showing a small improvement on the year before, the absence rate - or the percentage of half-days missed for all pupils - still lingered stubbornly above pre-pandemic figures. It sat at 7.1% in the last school year, compared to 4.7% in the 2018/19 one. One in 5 pupils were also classified as ‘persistently absent’ from class, nearly double the pre-pandemic figure.
Another recent Department for Education report also showed just how important regular attendance is to a young person’s outcomes at school. It found that pupils who attended school nearly every day in Year 11 were almost twice as likely to achieve a Grade 5 in their English and Maths GCSEs, compared to pupils who only attended 90 to 95% of the time. This meant that missing just 10 days reduced the likelihood of getting a strong pass in these required subjects by around 50%.
Included with the Government’s attendance figures was the absence data for each state-funded secondary school in England. We’ve crunched the numbers to calculate which secondary schools had the lowest overall absence rates for any reason. With attendance and attainment seemingly so interlinked, it’s no surprise then that many of these schools were also among the country’s highest performing state secondary schools overall in the last academic year.
Here were the 15 schools that boasted the highest attendance rates - and the lowest absences:
5. Tauheedul Islam Girls' High School
Just like its counterpart, this is a secondary school and sixth form in Blackburn, Lancashire, this one for girls. It also had the third highest Progress 8 score in the country in the last school year. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an absence rate of 2.97%. | Google
6. Wilson's School
Wilson’s is a selective Anglican boys’ grammar school in the Sutton borough, South London. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an absence rate of 3.01%. | Google
7. Mercia School
Mercia is a secondary school and sixth form in Sheffield, known for having incredibly high standards and rules for pupil behaviour. Yet another high performer, it had the second highest Progress 8 score of any school in England last year. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an absence rate of 3.27%. | Google
8. The Blue Coat School, Liverpool
The Blue Coat School is a selective secondary school and sixth form in Liverpool. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an absence rate of 3.28%. | Google