Almost one in four pupils in England was persistently absent from school last autumn, with Covid and other illness to blame, new government data shows.
Department for Education statistics show 23.5 per cent of pupils, around 1.6 million children, missed 10 per cent or more of possible sessions in the 2021-22 autumn term, up from 13 per cent in 2020.
The government said the spike in persistent absence was “largely due to illness, including positive Covid cases”. It pointed out that a “single full Covid isolation period would count as persistent absence, with seven days being roughly equivalent to 10 per cent of sessions missed”.
