Nearly one in 10 pupils have missed some time in school due to family holidays, new government statistics show.
They also reveal that more pupils missed school for both authorised and unauthorised reasons in 2018 compared with 2017.
The rate of authorised absence rose from 3.4 per cent in the autumn/spring terms of 2016-17 to 3.5 per cent in autumn/spring 2017-18.
The absence rate is worked out as the percentage of half-days for which pupils are absent out of the total number of half-days in the school year.
The statistics show that illness is the main driver for absence rates, accounting for 60 per cent of all absence in autumn/spring 2017-18.
But the statistical release also states that unauthorised holiday absence has been increasing gradually since 2006-07.
It reveals that the percentage of pupils who missed at least one session due to a family holiday in autumn/spring 2017-18 was 9.6 per cent, compared with 9.4 per cent in autumn/spring 2016-17.
From September 2013 a regulations amendment stated that term time leave may only be granted in exceptional circumstances.
And since then term time holidays have become even more of a contentious issue. Jon Platt, a father who took a child on seven day holiday to Disney World during school term in 2016, challenged his local authority over a £60 fine for taking his daughter out of school.
He won his case in the magistrates’ and high courts, but in a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court overturned the previous verdicts saying that the Isle of Wight Council was correct to fine Mr Platt.
