How to evaluate your school's absence and attendance figures

Read our tips on monitoring and challenging your school's attendance figures by questioning your senior leaders, benchmarking against national data, and understanding how Ofsted will use your data.

Last reviewed on 1 February 2023

School types: All · School phases: All

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Contents

Your board should regularly review attendance data and help leaders focus improvement efforts
Understand what persistent and severe absence mean
Ask your senior leaders questions
Benchmark against national statistics
Make sure you know the law
Consider the Ofsted criteria
Severe absence may be a safeguarding issue

This involves:

Regularly reviewing attendance data at board meetings (including looking at school-level trends and benchmarking with other schools)
Paying particular attention to pupil cohorts that have had poor attendance historically or face entrenched barriers to attendance. For example, pupils:
- With a social worker
- From a background or ethnicity where attendance has been low
- With a long-term medical condition
- With special education needs and/or disabilities (SEND)
- Who are eligible for free school meals
Working with senior leaders to set goals or areas of focus for attendance and providing challenge and support on these areas

See the Department for Education's (DfE's) latest non-statutory guidance on working together to improve school attendance.

Read our article on your role in improving school attendance to understand your other duties under the DfE's attendance guidance.

These are based on pupils' individual absence levels, not by comparison to a