A staggering 1 in 50 pupils in English state schools missed at least half their lessons last year, fuelling the widening disadvantage gap between disadvantaged pupils and their classmates. The Education Policy Institute (EPI) has identified unauthorised school absences as the primary cause of this trend, with free school meal-eligible students missing more days than their non-disadvantaged peers.
The EPI's research reveals that poor attendance is having a disproportionate impact on GCSE attainment, contributing more substantially to the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their classmates than authorised absence. The analysis shows that if disadvantaged pupils had similar attendance records to other students, the attainment gap at age 11 would be nearly 10% smaller, while at age 16 it would be reduced by 20%.
Emily Hunt, EPI associate director of social mobility, highlights that this is the first time their research has definitively shown high and increasing absence levels among disadvantaged pupils to be the primary driver of the disadvantage gap's expansion since 2019. She stresses that addressing this issue will require tackling the underlying causes of absence, which school leaders say are often beyond their control.
Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), notes that families in some cases see school as "at least in part – optional," while current fines for unauthorised term-time holidays fail to curb this trend. He warns that such fines often deepen tensions between schools and parents.
Data from the Department for Education (DfE) shows that FSM pupils are twice as likely to be absent, with children whose special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) not identified early in their schooling also falling behind. Furthermore, girls are making less progress during secondary school than boys since the pandemic, prompting calls for more research into this trend.