Shropshire’s school attendance rates are among the best in England, new figures have revealed.

The number of pupils missing school has fallen again in both county council primary and secondary schools, placing Shropshire 10th out of 150 local education authorities for attendance. For the 2007/2008 school year, the primary school figure was 95.42 per cent compared to 95.28 per cent for 2006/2007.

The figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families also show secondary school attendance for 2007/2008 was 93.16 per cent compared to 92.68 per cent for the previous year.

National figures for last year are 94.74 per cent for primary schools and 92.66 per cent for secondaries.

The county’s persistent absence rate – pupils with more than 20 per cent absence – also continues to improve. For primaries it is 0.9 per cent compared to 1.7 per cent nationally and for secondaries it is 4.3 per cent compared to 5.6 per cent.

Ann Hartley, cabinet me-mber for children’s services, said: “These are excellent figures which show that the determined efforts of parents, pupils, schools and the council all working together are having great results, with attendance across the county continuing to improve year-on-year.”

Janice Chaplin, principal education welfare officer, said factors which have contributed to the improvements include an increasing awareness by parents of the importance of ensuring their children attended school regularly. This could be seen in the steady reduction of family holidays being taken during term time.

Mrs Chaplin said that school staff were heavily committed to monitoring pupil attendance and addressing the issues that could cause children to not want to go to school.

This combined with the local authority’s support for schools and families and the use of “interventions” such as the Fast Track programme had also had a significant impact.

Last year a council report showed that a record number of parents had been fined or issued with warning notices for keeping their children off school.