Monitor your school attendance: how to use the absence bandings report
Updated 19 December 2024
Applies to England
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Schools, academy trusts and local authorities can use the absence bandings report to review absence data.
It is available in the ‘insights dashboard’ of the Monitor your school attendance tool. You can access it via the View your education data (VYED) platform.
It can help you to look beyond headline absence rates to:
- understand your absence distribution
- identify pupils with and approaching persistent and severe absence rates
- identify absence trends and pupils who need support
- consider underlying causes of absence
- devise strategies to address absence challenges
Watch a video on YouTube about the absence bandings report and how schools can use it to interrogate data to identify actionable insights.
Absence data you can access and use
The absence bandings report shows you:
- absence data in 5% bands up to 50% (severe absence)
- the number and total percentage of pupils in each band
When you select an absence band, you get:
- a list of pupils
- their unique pupil number (UPN)
- overall absence rate
- year group
The data we use to calculate your results:
- is for the current academic year-to-date
- includes attendance and absence codes for each pupil (as recorded in your MIS)
- is based on pupils with a minimum of 20 possible attendance sessions
Use our data definitions to understand the terms we use and how we calculate your results in school attendance reports.
Understand your absence distribution
Getting a better understanding of how absence is distributed across different bands can help you to define your overall strategy to tackle absence. This approach can be adapted to your organisation type.
Who should use the absence bandings report
If you are a school
You should use this approach to help target resources and interventions where they are likely to have the greatest impact, in line with schools’ responsibilities in chapter 2 of the Working together to improve school attendance guidance. You can also use the report to benchmark absence data against your historic local authority performance.
If you are a local authority or academy trust
Local authorities and academy trusts should use the report to support early identification and support for individual pupils in need of additional interventions.
Academy trusts may wish to use the reports to identify school level variation within the trust, and facilitate additional support where appropriate.
Local authorities may wish to use the report to facilitate Targeting Support Meetings with schools, as set out in chapter 4 of the Working together to improve school attendance guidance.
Example: identifying the absence distribution across similar schools
School A and school B are neighbouring secondary schools. Using the absence bandings report, their results appear to be similar with roughly:
- 8% overall absence rate
- 23% persistent absence rate
School A absence bandings results: 8.2% overall absence in the academic year-to-date
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 510 | 47.8% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 297 | 27.8% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 124 | 11.6% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 57 | 5.3% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 18 | 1.7% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 18 | 1.7% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 8 | 0.7% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 6 | 0.6% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 4 | 0.4% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 2 | 0.2% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 24 | 2.2% |
School B absence bandings results: 8.0% overall absence in the academic year-to-date
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 675 | 58.8% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 215 | 18.7% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 80 | 7.0% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 48 | 4.2% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 23 | 2.0% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 19 | 1.7% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 10 | 0.9% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 11 | 1.0% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 11 | 1.0% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 3 | 0.3% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 53 | 4.6% |
Identifying differences in the data
Although headline absence results are similar, the absence distribution is different.
There are:
- fewer children in school A than school B attending most days (0 to 5% absence)
- a higher proportion of pupils in school A missing between 5% to 15% of sessions
- fewer severely absent pupils in school A
Each school would need to take a different approach in their strategies to reduce absence rates. For example, a greater focus on severe absence in school B compared to school A.
Understand your absence distribution
To understand your absence distribution, review:
- pupils with absence between 0% to 5% that attend regularly
- pupils with absence between 5% to 15%
- pupils missing at least 50% of the time in school (severe absence)
You should also consider any trends with groups or cohorts of pupils within these absence bands.
Example: working out the absence distribution for school A
For school A:
- 47.8% of pupils with absence between 0% to 5%
- 421 pupils with absence between 5% to 15%
- 24 pupils missing at least 50% of the time in school
Using these results, school A could focus on pupils with:
- 5% to 10% absence to ensure their attendance does not drop further
- 10% to 15% absence to drive improvement
Compare absence with historic data
Use DfE’s published statistics to compare your absence profile at regional, local authority and national level via the Pupil absence distributions in schools in England dashboard. Comparing your results can help you understand where your school performs well and where you have different or more acute challenges.
You can review data for previous academic years at national and local level, to see how you are performing.
Example: comparing absence with historic data for school A
When comparing school A’s absence banding report to historic absence data for the 2022 to 2023 academic year the rate of severe absence is better than school B’s but significantly lower than the national secondary rate in 2022 to 2023 of 3.4%.
For the 2018 to 2019 academic year the severe absence rate was 1.3%, showing how much you could potentially improve.
The proportion of pupils attending almost every day is close to the national rate at 47.8% compared to 46.3% in the 2022 to 2023 academic year. However, it was lower than 64.0% in the 2018 to 2019 academic year.
Communicate your results with families and teachers
Schools and academy trusts can use this approach to inform parents and teachers about absence rates within the school.
In this example:
- school A could outline challenges with severe absence rates
- school B could send a positive message about the percentage of pupils attending regularly
Identify absence trends across year groups, pupil groups and cohorts
You can use filters in the report to identify cohorts and pupil groups in your results.
Start by reviewing data by year group to see the overall distribution of absence. You can then look at absence for other cohorts, such as:
- sex
- free school meals
- special education needs (SEN) support
This can help you to:
- generate insights and identify trends
- identify cohorts below your overall absence distribution level
The following examples show the absence bandings reports with different filters applied. When reviewing your results with several filters applied, remember that the data is based on smaller numbers of pupils and will not represent the wider school population.
Example: Absence bandings results by year group
Year 7 pupils
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 106 | 54.1% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 58 | 29.6% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 18 | 9.2% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 6 | 3.1% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 3 | 1.5% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 3 | 1.5% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 1 | 0.5% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 1 | 0.5% |
Year 8 pupils
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 102 | 49.0% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 62 | 29.8% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 23 | 11.1% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 11 | 5.3% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 2 | 1.0% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 2 | 1.0% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 2 | 1.0% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 1 | 0.5% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 3 | 1.4% |
Year 9 pupils
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 70 | 37.8% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 55 | 29.7% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 29 | 15.7% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 14 | 7.6% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 2 | 1.1% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 4 | 2.2% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 3 | 1.6% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 1 | 0.5% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 2 | 1.1% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 5 | 2.7% |
Results
These examples show that between year groups there are:
- fewer pupils absent less than 5% of the time
- an increase in pupil absence between 10% to 15%
- a rise in severe absence from 0.5% to 2.7%
School leaders may want to:
- target efforts to address early decline in absences over Key Stage 3
- consider if some groups are over-represented in that early decline in regular attendance
Example: Absence bandings results by year group for pupils with free school meals (FSM)
Year 7 pupils with free school meals
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 23 | 39.7% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 21 | 36.2% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 9 | 15.5% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 2 | 3.4% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 2 | 3.4% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 1 | 1.7% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
Year 8 pupils with free school meals
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 19 | 30.2% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 24 | 38.1% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 8 | 12.7% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 7 | 11.1% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 1 | 1.6% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 1 | 1.6% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 1 | 1.6% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 2 | 3.2% |
Year 9 pupils with free school meals
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 14 | 22.6% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 20 | 32.3% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 13 | 21.0% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 7 | 11.3% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 2 | 3.2% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 2 | 3.2% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 1 | 1.6% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 1 | 1.6% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 2 | 3.2% |
Results
These examples show the proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals with absence below 5% is lower and declines more rapidly than the cohort average. It falls from 39.7% of the cohort in year 7 to 22.6% for year 9. Around 50% remain in the 5% to 15% absence bands.
Results show:
- pupils in the 5% to 15% band remain broadly stable
- severe absence for this cohort is higher in years 8 and 9
Example: Absence bandings results by year group and sex for pupils with free school meals (FSM)
To see if there are any further trends by sex, you can apply additional filters for ‘male’ or ‘female’.
Year 9 pupils with free school meals (FSM) who are female
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 8 | 25.0% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 11 | 34.4% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 6 | 18.8% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 3 | 9.4% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 1 | 3.1% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 1 | 3.1% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 2 | 6.3% |
Year 9 pupils with free school meals (FSM) who are male
| Absence band | Total number of pupils | Total percentage of pupils |
|---|---|---|
| 0% to less than 5% | 6 | 20.0% |
| 5% to less than 10% | 9 | 30.0% |
| 10% to less than 15% | 7 | 23.3% |
| 15% to less than 20% | 4 | 13.3% |
| 20% to less than 25% | 2 | 6.7% |
| 25% to less than 30% | 2 | 6.7% |
| 30% to less than 35% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 35% to less than 40% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 40% to less than 45% | 0 | 0.0% |
| 45% to less than 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Absence greater than or equal to 50% | 0 | 0.0% |
Results
The results show that for year 9 pupils eligible for free school meals there are:
- fewer males (20%) than females (25%) absent 0% to 5% of the time
- the number of pupils in the 5% to 15% absence bands are similar
- all severely absent pupils in this cohort are girls
Using your results
School leaders might want to consider how they can support attendance for pupils:
- eligible for free school meals (FSM)
- in Key Stage 3
- showing signs of decline in regular attendance (in the 0% to 5% absence band)
Consider the underlying reasons for the trends in your data
Before deciding what action to take, consider the underlying reasons for absence in this cohort. You can think about what could be addressed as a school and what may require other organisations to respond.
Consider if this group:
- declines in absence at key points in the year
- has anything in common, for example, if they all joined from the same feeder primary school, or applied for the school as a second or third choice
- is more likely to be absent during particular days of the week
Individual pupil data
To review attendance and absence data for an individual pupil, access the ‘weekly chart’ report using the ‘pupil’ section of the dashboard.
Using the tool over time
Regularly review absence bandings data to:
- see when pupils are moving up or down absence bands
- monitor the impact of your schools’ strategies to attendance
- inform decisions on when further support or action might be needed