School attendance and absence: quality report

Attendance data is recorded throughout the year in each school’s attendance register/management information system.

Schools in Wales are legally required to keep pupil registers under section 434 of the Education Act 1996 (UK legislation). The detailed requirements are set out in The Education (Pupil Registration) (Wales) Regulations 2010 (UK legislation). These Regulations require the proprietor of every school to keep an admission register and, except where all pupils are boarders, an attendance register.

School attendance codes

The Welsh Government produces guidance on statutory attendance codes. However, schools sometimes use local definitions for their attendance codes. School MISs convert local codes to statutory codes when the data is submitted to Welsh Government.

Welsh Government collects and publishes statutory attendance information every year from all maintained schools in Wales. The data covers all statutory school-age pupils (pupils aged 5 to 15).

Collection

Welsh Government collects annual attendance data in two parts every academic year. The secondary school-age collection takes place between the late May (Spring) bank holiday and the end of the academic year. The primary school-age collection takes place in the September following the academic year.

Schools

Schools use their MISs to produce annual term-based, pupil-level summaries of their data as XML files. Those files are uploaded to Welsh Government’s secure data transfer service, Data Exchange Wales initiative (DEWi).

Local authorities

We work with local authorities to check the data provided by schools using their information and DEWi’s automated validation features. When they are satisfied with the data they send it to Welsh Government.

Welsh Government

After downloading the data from DEWi, we produce a summary of the data for each local authority. Local authorities check that this summary matches their expectations for the data and send confirmation to Welsh Government.

The effect of coronavirus (COVID-19)

Welsh Government suspended the collection of annual data at the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in March 2020. This means no data is available for the school years 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22.

Differences between primary and secondary school-age collections

We split the pupils between collections by pupils’ ages. We define age for each academic year as the age each pupil was on the 31 August before the start of the academic year. 

For example, if a pupil was born on 01/01/2010 they would be 15 on 31/08/2025. So, for the 2025/26 academic year, they would be age 15 in our statistics.

Primary school-age collection

For primary schools, we collect the attendance data for the entire academic year, for pupils aged between 5 to 10.

Secondary school-age collection

Attendance data from secondary schools is only collected up to the late May (Spring) bank holiday in each academic year. For example, in the 2024/25 academic year, the collection only included attendance data from dates between:

• 2 September 2024
• 26 May 2025

We do this to account for high levels of study leave and other authorised absences for pupils aged 15 in the second half of the summer term. This does mean that the secondary school data is not fully comparable with the primary school data.

We only include pupils aged 11 to 15 in the secondary school-age collection.

Special schools

Unlike mainstream schools, we only collect aggregate data from special schools in Wales.

We only collect the total number of:

• sessions pupils could possibly have attended
• sessions pupils were authorised to be absent
• sessions pupils were unauthorised to be absent

split by the sex.

Publications

The data is released in 3 publications:

• ‘Attendance and absence from primary schools’
• ‘Attendance and absence from secondary schools’
• ‘Attendance and absence from schools’

We publish those three releases annually as part of the series Attendance and absence from schools.

Persistent absence

Not all pupils are required to be in school for the same number of sessions. School closures, moving schools, inset days, etc. are all instances where a pupil might not be required to attend school, where other pupils might still be required to attend.

Historically, persistent absence was defined as being absent for 20% of the most common number of required sessions. So, if most pupils are required to be in school for 378 half-day session in the year, the threshold for persistent absence was 76 sessions. These sessions need not be continuous for a pupil to be considered persistently absent.

The Welsh Government has now changed the official threshold for persistent absence to 10% of the most common number of required sessions.

For Primary schools, the threshold for 10% persistent absence in 2024/25 is 38 sessions.

For Secondary schools, the threshold for 10% persistent absence in 2024/25 is 31 sessions.

The persistent absence figures in this release use the 10% threshold unless explicitly stated.

Local authority maintained schools

Schools maintained by the local authorities. The authorities meet their expenditure partly from council tax and partly from general grants made by the Welsh Government.

Primary schools

Ages 3/4 to 10.

Middle schools

Ages 3/4 to 16/18.

Secondary schools

Ages 11 to 16/18.

Special schools

Special schools, both day and boarding, provide education for children with ALN or SEN who cannot be educated satisfactorily in mainstream schools.

A person has ALN/SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability (whether the learning difficulty or disability arises from a medical condition or otherwise) which calls for additional learning provision or special educational provision. Learners with ALN will have their needs identified in individual development plans (IDPs) which are statutory plans created under the ALN Act. Learners with SEN may have School Action, School Action Plus or a Statement, which will cease in August 2025 when the implementation of the ALN system is complete.

Additional Learning Needs (ALN)

The Additional Learning Needs Code for Wales 2021 (the ALN Code) and regulations came into force on 1 September 2021 to ensure children and young people aged 0 to 25 can access additional support to meet their needs.

As of September 2025, the ALN system is the only statutory framework for supporting children and young people with ALN in Wales. Learners with ALN will have their needs identified in IDPs maintained by either a school or a local authority. 

Implementation of the ALN system was ongoing from September 2021 until August 2025. As this publication covers the academic year 2024/25 (as well as years back to the 2013/14 academic year), it includes information about learners with ALN or SEN.

Analysis of the data, along with feedback from local authorities suggest that the fall in ALN/SEN learners over the last four years is due to a systematic review by schools of their ALN/SEN identification and data, both in readiness for and during implementation of the ALN system. This includes assessment of individual needs against the ALN test to identify if they have a significant learning difficulty in learning that requires provision that is additional to, or different from, that which is made generally for all learners.

Welsh Government will continue to monitor the numbers of learners with ALN and work with our partners to ensure the data presents an accurate reflection of the numbers and categories of learners with ALN in Wales. To support this work, the Welsh Government is reviewing the data we collect about learners with ALN to be able to better support learners with ALN and monitor and improve the ALN system. 

Individual Development Plans

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are statutory plans created under the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018, which came into force on 1 September 2021. A learner may have either a school maintained IDP or a local authority maintained IDP.

Pupils with statements

Pupils for whom the authority maintains a statement of special educational needs under Part IV of the Education Act 1996. A statement may be issued by the local authority after assessment of a child’s needs. 

School Action

When a class or subject teacher identify that a pupil has special educational needs they provide interventions that are additional to or different from those provided as part of the school’s usual curriculum. 

School Action Plus

When the class or subject teacher and the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator are provided with advice or support from outside specialists, so that alternative interventions additional or different to those provided for the pupil through 'School Action' can be put in place. The Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator usually takes the lead although day-to-day provision continues to be the responsibility of class or subject teacher.

Pupils are eligible for FSM if their parents or guardians are in receipt of certain means-tested benefits or support payments.

Transitional protection for free school meals

On 1 April 2019 the Welsh Government introduced a new transitional protection for free school meals policy. This was brought in to ensure that pupils have their free school meals protected during the Universal Credit rollout period.

This protection applies to individual pupils and will continue until the end of their current school phase, being the end of primary school or end of secondary school.

Any pupil that was eligible for free school meals on the introduction of the policy on 1 April 2019 should also be transitionally protected. In addition, any pupil that has become eligible at any point during the Universal Credit rollout under the new eligibility criteria should also be transitionally protected.

The FSM analysis in this release only includes pupils who are eligible through the means tested criteria. Those eligible through TP or UPFSM are not included.

Types of absence

All (or ‘overall’) absences comprise those which are authorised and unauthorised:

• An authorised absence is an absence with permission from a teacher or other authorised representative of the school. This includes instances of absence for which a satisfactory explanation has been provided (e.g. illness, family bereavement or religious observance).
• An unauthorised absence is an absence without permission from a teacher or other authorised representative of the school.  This includes all unexplained or unjustified absences.

Note that pupils undertaking approved and supervised educational activities conducted away from the school (e.g. work experience or educational visits) are deemed to be present at the school.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic we collected and published attendance data annually. This annual data set was collected in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistics Authority) and is designated as National Statistics. Absenteeism from secondary schools was usually published in August, absenteeism from primary schools in December and an additional bulletin on absenteeism from schools by pupil characteristics followed in February. That bulletin has been replaced by this publication.

The data collections underpinning these outputs were suspended at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. There is no data from these collections for the 2019/20, 2020/21 or 2021/22 school years. This release presents the results from the recommencement of these annual collections from the 2022/23 school year onwards.

To inform our policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic we started collecting daily management information on attendance in schools from September 2020 onwards. This data is extracted directly from school management information systems and is not validated or verified in any way with the schools and data is not always available for every school on every day. It is not Accredited Official Statistics and is of lower quality than the annual data presented in this release. However, it is useful in looking at overall levels of absence and trends at the Wales level and looking at patterns between pupils with different characteristics e.g., free school meals. Attendance at maintained schools has been published regularly since September 2020.

In October 2022 we published a summary release on attendance before and during the pandemic. This looked at the key differences between the annual and weekly data collections and detailed information on those differences can be found in that release.

Attendance data for the 2024/25 school year

This release contains fully quality assured attendance data to Accredited Official Statistics standards for primary and secondary schools for the 2024/25 school year.

We have also published a regular release of the management information during the 2024/25 school year leading to an overlap in the period covered by the two collections. Our advice is that users should use the data in this release as far as possible and only refer to the data in the weekly release if the information needed cannot be found or produced from this annual data set.

Source: Attendance Data Collection, Attendance Data - Management Information

[note 1] This data is from the release published on 5 August 2025.

The table shows overall attendance for schools by year group from September 2024 to July 2025. It shows that both the annual and weekly collections produce consistent results across all year groups, with the greatest difference for year 11 pupils at 0.4 percentage points.

The above table confirms that at the Wales level both collections for 2024/25 produce consistent and comparable results. However, it is likely that due to the way the weekly data are collected and the lack of validation that there would be greater and more significant differences at below the Wales level.

All official statistics should show the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics.

These are accredited official statistics. They were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in July 2010. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

It is Welsh Government’s responsibility to maintain compliance with the standards expected of accreditation. If we become concerned about whether these statistics are still meeting the appropriate standards, we will discuss any concerns with OSR promptly. Accreditation can be cancelled or suspended at any point when the highest standards are not maintained and reinstated when standards are restored.

Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics

Our statistical practice is regulated by the OSR. OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

All our statistics are produced and published in accordance with a number of statements and protocols to enhance trustworthiness, quality and value. These are set out in the Welsh Government’s Statement of Compliance.

These accredited official statistics (OSR) demonstrate the standards expected around trustworthiness, quality and public value in the following ways.

Trustworthiness

The data in this release relates to attendance of pupils of compulsory school age (ages 5 to 15) in maintained secondary, middle, primary and special schools. The data is recorded throughout the year in the school’s management information system following statutory guidance for recoding attendance and absence. The data is derived from the statutory returns provided by local authorities. The data being recorded throughout the year in school’s management information system following statutory guidance for recoding attendance and absence. The returns are authorised and validated by local authorities. 

All personal data underlying these statistics are processed in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018.

These statistics are pre-announced on the Statistics and Research area of the Welsh Government website. Access to the data during processing is restricted to those involved in the production of the statistics, quality assurance and for operational purposes. Pre-release access is restricted to eligible recipients in line with the Code of Practice (UK Statistics Authority).

Quality

The published figures provided are compiled by professional analysts using the latest available data and applying methods using their professional judgement and analytical skillset. Statistics published by Welsh Government adhere to the Statistical Quality Management Strategy which supplements the Quality pillar of the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistical Authority) and the European Statistical System principles of quality for statistical outputs.

We work closely with local authorities to ensure all data is validated before tables are published.  Data is collated by local authorities into an electronic return and submitted to the Welsh Government through DEWi, a secure online data transfer system developed by the Welsh Government.  Various stages of automated validation and sense-checking are built into the process to ensure a high quality of data.

All stages in the collection, validation and production of these statistics are led by statisticians from the Government Statistical Group.

Value

These statistics are used in a variety of ways. Some examples of these are:

• advice to ministers
• to inform the education policy decision-making process in Wales
• to inform Estyn during school inspections
• the education domain of the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation
• to assist in research in educational attainment

This release is accompanied by an Open Document Spreadsheet which can be shared and reused widely and which complies with the Government Analysis Function guidance on Releasing statistics in spreadsheets. It is also accompanied by detailed tables on StatsWales, a free to use service that allows visitors to view, manipulate, create and download data.

Data is clearly presented in each table, with the spreadsheet also including a cover sheet listing each table. The commentary and notes in the release have been developed to try to make the information as accessible as possible to the widest range of users. Furthermore, all our school statistics outputs are published in Welsh and English.

Comparability

England

Statistics: school and pupil numbers (Department for Education)

Scotland 

Statistics and research (Scottish Government)

Northern Ireland

Education statistics (Department of Education)

The Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015 is about improving the social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing of Wales. The Act puts in place seven wellbeing goals for Wales. These are for a more equal, prosperous, resilient, healthier, and globally responsible Wales, with cohesive communities and a vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language. Under section (10)(1) of the Act, the Welsh Ministers must (a) publish indicators (“national indicators”) that must be applied for the purpose of measuring progress towards the achievement of the Well-being goals, and (b) lay a copy of the national indicators before Senedd Cymru. The 46 national indicators were laid in March 2016.

Information on the indicators, along with narratives for each of the wellbeing goals and associated technical information is available in the Wellbeing of Wales report.

Further information on the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

The statistics included in this release could also provide supporting narrative to the national indicators and be used by public services boards in relation to their local wellbeing assessments and local wellbeing plans.