Attendance and absence from schools: September 2024 to August 2025
Attendance and absence data in Welsh maintained primary, middle, secondary and special schools for pupils aged 5 to 15 over the entire 2024/25 academic year (from September 2024 to August 2025).
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In this page
Introduction
This bulletin relates to attendance of pupils of compulsory school age (ages 5 to 15) in maintained primary, middle, secondary, and special schools.
The data in this bulletin combines the data published in two previous releases:
- Absenteeism from primary schools: September 2024 to August 2025
- Absenteeism from secondary schools: September 2024 to August 2025
This release is accompanied by detailed spreadsheets containing all the data tables from the two separate statistical releases linked above. Further details can be found in the associated quality report.
Main points
Comparisons between 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years
- The percentage of half-day sessions missed by school-aged pupils has decreased from 9.5% to 8.9% in 2024/25.
- School-aged pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) missed 14.6% half-day sessions in 2024/25, while school-aged pupils who are not eligible for FSM missed 7.3% of half-day sessions, both figures have decreased since 2023/24.
- Using the 10% threshold, the percentage of school-aged pupils that were persistently absent has fallen from 30.4% to 27.0% in 2024/25.
- Using the 10% threshold, 50.7% of school-aged pupils eligible for FSM were persistently absent in 2024/25, compared with 21.1% of pupils who are not eligible for FSM. This is a decrease from 2023/24 for both groups of pupils.
Comparisons between 2018/19 and 2024/25 academic years
- The percentage of half-day sessions missed by school-aged pupils in 2024/25 was 8.9%, up from 5.7% in 2018/19.
- School-aged pupils eligible for FSM missed 14.6% half-day sessions in 2024/25, up from 8.8% in 2018/19, while school-aged pupils who are not eligible for FSM missed 7.3% of half-day sessions, up from 4.9%.
- Using the 10% threshold, the percentage of school-aged pupils that were persistently absent in 2024/25 was 27.0%, up from 14.7% in 2018/19.
- Using the 10% threshold, 50.7% of school-aged pupils eligible for FSM were persistently absent in 2024/25, up from 30.4% in 2018/19. In comparison, 21.1% of pupils who are not eligible for FSM were persistently absent in 2024/25, up from 11.3% in 2018/19.
Overall absence
Figure 1: percentage of half-day sessions absent from school of school-age pupils, 2013/14 to 2024/25 [Note 1]
Description of figure 1: a line graph showing absence between 2013/14 and 2024/25. Absence is broken down into authorised and unauthorised absence. There has been an increase in overall absence between 2018/19 and 2022/23 following the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2022/23 and 2024/25 there has been a decrease in overall absence, principally due to a decrease in authorised absences.
Source: Attendance Data Collection 2024/25 (includes maintained primary, middle, secondary and special schools)
[Note 1] There is no data in this collection for the years 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The years where there is data are indicated by the circular markers on the lines. The pandemic period is shaded grey.
Persistent absence
The Welsh Government has now changed the official threshold for persistent absence to 10% of the most common number of required sessions.
For detail on how this differs for primary and secondary school-aged pupils, please see the quality report.
Figure 2: percentage of school-age pupils persistently absent 2013/14 to 2024/25 [Note 1]
Description of figure 2: a line graph showing percentage of persistently absent (10% threshold) school age pupils stayed between 13.7% and 15.5% between 2013/14 and 2018/19. Following the coronavirus pandemic, persistent absence (10% threshold) more than doubled between 2018/19 and 2022/23, before falling to 27% in 2024/25.
Source: Attendance Data Collection 2024/25 (includes maintained primary, middle, secondary and special schools)
[Note 1] There is no data in this collection for the years 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The years where there is data are indicated by the circular markers on the lines. The pandemic period is shaded grey.
