Unauthorised school absences across England remain at around twice pre-pandemic levels, with secondary pupils missing the equivalent of 11.7 million school days without permission during the autumn and spring terms of 2025/26, according to Department for Education figures.
The national unauthorised absence rate for state-funded secondary schools stood at 2.9% of all school sessions in those two terms. While this figure has dropped slightly over the last two years, it is still roughly double the rate seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
London schools among lowest truancy rates
Rates vary widely across the capital and the country. Bishop Thomas Grant Catholic Secondary School in Lambeth recorded the lowest unauthorised absence rate in England at just 0.03% of school sessions across autumn and spring 2025/26 – almost no lessons missed without permission.
The Camden School for Girls also recorded a rate of just 0.2%, placing it among the country’s lowest. Sacred Heart Catholic School in Southwark and Queen Elizabeth’s School in Barnet also recorded rates of 0.2% each, while Wilson’s School in Sutton recorded a similarly low rate of 0.1%.
Deprivation link and disadvantage gap
There is a strong link between deprivation and higher rates of unauthorised school absenteeism, and this is widening the “disadvantage gap” in academic achievement, according to research from the Education Policy Institute (EPI).
The EPI report found that the growing attainment gap among 16-year-olds since 2019 has been entirely driven by higher absence rates among students on free school meals (FSM), leaving them months behind their peers. The report highlighted unauthorised secondary school absences as the main culprit, noting they have a far greater impact on GCSE results than authorised time off, and this has accelerated rapidly since the pandemic.
Nationally, secondary pupils on FSM missed more than three times as much school for unauthorised reasons as those not eligible for the scheme last autumn and spring – 6.0% compared to 1.7%.
Reasons for unauthorised absence
Of the 11.7 million school days skipped across the two terms, around 1.1 million were lost to both term-time holidays and lateness. The vast majority – 9.3 million – were due to “other” reasons, which can include missing school for family birthdays, shopping trips, car trouble, or most often pupils skipping school without their parents’ knowledge or permission.
Highest and lowest rates nationwide
The Co-op Academy in Leeds had the highest rate of unauthorised absence in autumn and spring last year, at 14.4% – nearly five times the national average. It was followed by Leeds East Academy (12.3%), The Basildon Upper Academy in Essex (11.5%), Fir Vale Academy in Sheffield (11.4%) and Notre Dame Catholic Academy in Liverpool (11.1%).
At the other end of the scale, Bishop Thomas Grant Catholic Secondary School in Lambeth was the only school in the country to see almost no schooling missed for unauthorised reasons, at just 0.03%. Other schools with particularly low rates include Wilson’s School in Sutton (0.1%), Loreto Grammar School in Trafford (0.2%), The Camden School for Girls (0.2%), and Kesteven and Sleaford High School Selective Academy in Lincolnshire (0.2%). Schools with fewer than 300 pupils have been excluded from the analysis.
The figures, recently published by the Department for Education, show that the rate of unauthorised absence varies widely by school, with the top 20 highest rates all above 10% and the top 20 lowest rates all at 0.2% or below.
