School attendance and SEND: what does the data show?
Pupils with special educational needs have higher rates of absence than pupils with no identified SEN. The gap runs through overall, persistent and severe absence, and it is widest at the severe end.
In short
In autumn term 2025/26, absence was higher for pupils with an EHC plan and for pupils receiving SEN support than for pupils with no identified SEN.
The difference is largest for severe absence: pupils with an EHC plan were about 8 times as likely to be severely absent as pupils with no identified SEN.
How does the DfE group pupils by SEN?
Attendance statistics distinguish between:
- EHC plan — pupils with an education, health and care plan (424,332 enrolments);
- SEN support — pupils receiving special educational needs support without an EHC plan (1,077,669);
- No identified SEN — pupils not recorded in either category (5,576,204).
These groups allow national differences to be examined, but each contains pupils with very different individual circumstances.
What does the latest data show?
| SEN provision | Overall absence | Persistent absence | Severe absence |
|---|---|---|---|
| EHC plan | 12.87% | 33.80% | 7.37% |
| SEN support | 9.25% | 26.42% | 3.71% |
| No identified SEN | 5.39% | 14.71% | 0.93% |
Pupils with an EHC plan were about 8 times as likely to be severely absent as pupils with no identified SEN, and pupils receiving SEN support about 4 times as likely. This is one of the clearest dimensions of inequality in the national attendance data.
Why might absence be higher?
There is no single explanation. Pupils with SEND may experience barriers associated with physical or mental health, anxiety, sensory needs, unmet educational needs, difficulty accessing the school environment, transport, medical appointments or other individual circumstances.
The presence of SEND should not be treated as a sufficient explanation on its own.
Attendance support and reasonable adjustments
Attendance expectations apply to pupils with SEND. DfE statutory guidance, Working together to improve school attendance, also stresses the importance of understanding individual barriers and meeting relevant duties, including those under the Equality Act.
Appropriate attendance support may therefore look different for different pupils. The objective is to improve access and engagement wherever possible, rather than applying identical responses regardless of need.
Why severe absence deserves particular attention
A pupil missing half or more of their possible school sessions has very limited access to normal classroom teaching. Identifying which pupils are in that group, and the barriers they face, is more useful than relying on a school's average attendance figure.
Absence is also high in special schools as a whole: 35.09% persistent absence and 6.55% severe absence in autumn term 2025/26. Pupils with SEND are educated across all school types, so the phase figures and the SEN provision figures answer different questions.
Explore the data yourself
Compare absence for pupils with an EHC plan, SEN support and no identified SEN, and by primary type of need.
Compare attendance by SEN status →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.