Schools in Shropshire buck the truancy rate trend
Thursday 26th August 2010, 11:29AM BST.
Rising numbers of primary school children skipped school during the spring term as the overall truancy rate rose, official figures showed today.
Almost 69,000 primary and secondary pupils in England missed classes without permission on a typical day through truancy, family holidays, illness and other reasons, an analysis of figures published by the Department for Education suggests.
But the Shropshire Council part of the county is bucking the trend with school pupil’s attendance continuing to be above the national average.
Simon Alton, council spokesman, said 0.23 per cent of primary school sessions – technically half a day – were being missed in the spring term through unauthorised absence.
And 1.01 per cent of secondary school sessions were missed through unauthorised absence.
Nationally in total, 1.12 per cent of half days were missed due to unauthorised absence, up from 1.10 per cent for the same term in 2009.
This increase was down to a rise in the proportions of primary school children missing classes.
The figures show that primary age children missed 0.74 per cent of half days through unauthorised absence, up from 0.67 per cent in the spring term of last year.
In secondary schools the unauthorised absence rate fell slightly from 1.59 per cent to 1.56 per cent.
An increasing number of children were missing lessons because of family holidays taken during term time, the statistics showed.
Children missed around 1.4 million school days this spring due to holidays, and about one in four of these missed sessions were not approved by the school.
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