FFT attendance analysis featured in TES

By FFT Education

FFT Education Datalab’s analysis of pupil absence has been covered by TES. The analysis highlights that 2025/26 could be the first academic year since the pandemic in which there has been no meaningful reduction in absence.

The analysis, written by Datalab statistician Katie Benyon, drew on data from around 10,000 schools using FFT’s Attendance Tracker and reviewed attendance patterns across the full 2025/26 academic year.

Across both primary and secondary schools, changes in attendance have been marginal compared with last year: the proportion of sessions missed at secondary fell slightly from 9% in 2024/25 to 8.8%, while at primary, absence was unchanged at 5.5%.

Pupil absence has barely moved since last year

Persistent absence was also flat year on year, at 15% in primary schools and 25% in secondary schools. That compares with roughly 8% and 14% respectively in 2018/19, before the pandemic.

As both the TES piece and the Datalab blog note, this dispels the idea that June’s heatwave is behind the lack of progress – while the heatwave did increase absence, attendance showed little improvement across the whole year.

It will be interesting to see whether official government statistics confirm this next spring – especially as the government works towards its 94% attendance target for 2028/29.

You can read the TES coverage here: https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/school-attendance-improvement-stalls-pupil-absence

And you can read the full analysis on the Datalab blog: https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2026/07/pupil-absence-in-the-2025-26-academic-year/

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