Pupils: Absenteeism
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Department for Education's press release entitled Birthday bunk-offs fuelling avoidable school absence, published on 10 June 2026, what estimate she has made of the cost to the education system associated with persistent absenteeism.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
Each day of lost learning can do serious harm. Days missed add up quickly, even if it takes just 1 minute to catch up on each day of school that pupils miss, this still equates to resource equivalent of 1,000 full time teachers working purely on missed lessons.
Additionally, the hard work of school staff to cultivate a sense of community and belonging is wasted. When a child is absent, teachers have to work harder to catch them up and this then makes it more difficult to cover the curriculum for the whole class.
There is clear link between absence and attainment. Year 11 pupils with near-perfect attendance have almost twice the odds of achieving grade 5 in English and Maths GCSE, compared to similar pupils attending 90-95% of the time. Missing just 10 extra days a year reduces the odds of achieving these grades by around 50%.
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