More than a fifth of schoolchildren in England were persistently absent from lessons last year as the number of pupils off for at least 10% of the time almost doubled to more than 1.6 million, new data suggests.
Some 22.5% of pupils at special schools and state-funded primaries and secondaries were deemed “persistent absentees” in the 2021/22 school year, losing the equivalent of at least 19 days of teaching.
