School attendance and disadvantage: what does the data show?
Absence is substantially higher among pupils eligible for free school meals than among pupils who are not eligible. The gap appears in overall absence, in persistent absence, and widest of all in severe absence.
In short
In autumn term 2025/26, pupils eligible for free school meals had an overall absence rate (9.98%) almost twice that of pupils not eligible (5.03%).
They were more than twice as likely to be persistently absent and more than three and a half times as likely to be severely absent.
What does the latest data show?
| Free school meal eligibility | Overall absence | Persistent absence | Severe absence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eligible | 9.98% | 30.46% | 3.62% |
| Not eligible | 5.03% | 12.57% | 0.99% |
The groups are large: 2,006,873 eligible enrolments and 5,071,332 not eligible in autumn term 2025/26. The gap of 17.90 percentage points in persistent absence is therefore not a small-sample effect.
Why use free-school-meal eligibility?
Free-school-meal eligibility is widely used in education statistics as an indicator associated with economic disadvantage. It is useful for comparing large groups, but it is not a perfect measure of any family's circumstances, and eligibility itself does not explain why an individual child is absent.
Does this mean disadvantage causes absence?
The statistics show a strong association between disadvantage and higher absence. They do not establish a simple one-way causal relationship.
Families experiencing economic disadvantage may also face barriers involving housing, transport, health, caring responsibilities and access to support, and these factors interact. For schools, the useful question is not whether a pupil belongs to a statistical group, but what barriers are affecting that pupil's attendance.
Why does the gap matter?
A higher rate of absence among disadvantaged pupils has implications for educational inequality. If pupils who already face disadvantage also miss more teaching, the curriculum time available to them is reduced further. Attendance is therefore an important part of wider school strategies on disadvantage and inclusion.
Compare groups carefully
- compare like-for-like school phases where possible;
- look at persistent and severe absence as well as overall absence;
- examine trends rather than relying on a single year;
- consider the number of pupils involved;
- avoid treating a group average as a description of any individual pupil.
A school may also want to examine whether the national pattern is reproduced in its own attendance data.
Explore the data yourself
Compare overall, persistent and severe absence by free school meal eligibility, for England, any region or any local authority.
Compare attendance by FSM eligibility →About this guidance
This page explains publicly available school attendance statistics and guidance for England. tutor2u uses Department for Education data and primary government guidance wherever possible. Every figure shown is calculated directly from the published DfE data files rather than transcribed by hand.
Attendance statistics describe patterns across pupils and schools. They should be interpreted with appropriate context and should not be used to make assumptions about the circumstances of an individual pupil.