About 3.7 million school
days were missed last autumn by pupils playing truant according to official
figures.
According to official
figures pupils missed an average of 3.7 million school days by playing truant.
Statistics from the Department of Education reveal that on a typical day,
approximately 55,600 pupils skipped lessons without permission.
However overall absence
figures were lower than 2011, due to less sickness and fewer term-time
holidays.
The schools minister Nick Gibb said the figures
were a welcome fall in absence.
‘Tackling absence from school is a key part of the
government's determination to close the attainment gap between those from
poorer and wealthier backgrounds’ said Mr Gibb.
Although illness was the most common reason for
absence, accounting for more than half (58%) of school days missed, the figures
show a substantial decrease in absence rates for illness between the autumn
term of 2010 and the autumn term of 2011.
The figures also show that families took fewer
agreed holidays during term time. The number of school days lost because of
agreed holidays dropped by around 300,000 from 2.5 million in Autumn 2010 to
2.2 million in Autumn 2011.
Mr Gibb said: "Such absence is still a problem
but it is clear that more head teachers are refusing simply to wave through
parents' requests to take their children out of school for term-time holidays.
"Increasingly parents understand the damage
that can be caused to a child's education from missing even a day or two of
school."
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