More than a quarter of a million students would have met the proposed new government threshold for an absence fine being considered last term, according to new findings.
The FFT Education Data Lab analysis has also found that students with special education needs or disabilities and those who are disadvantaged were more likely to meet the thresholds for the consideration of a parental fine.
Its analysis of daily attendance data from the spring term of 2022 shows at least 260,000 students would meet one of the three proposed new criteria for a fine to be considered because of unauthorised absence.
Last week, the Department for Education set out the detail behind its plans for national standards to end the “postcode lottery” on when fines are issued to parents over pupil absence.
A consultation was also published asking for the public’s views on the circumstances in which a penalty notice would be considered.
New analysis by the FFT suggests that between 260,000 and 550,000 students will have met at least one of the first three proposed intervention criteria for unauthorised absence in the spring term. However, it said the higher figure is likely to be an overestimate.
FFT said that, under the existing current guidelines, there were 333,000 penalty notices issued in the whole of 2018-19, the final full year prior to the pandemic, according to official statistics.
It has now analysed daily attendance data from its Attendance Tracker from 6,800 primary schools and 2,600 secondary schools in England between January and April 2022. These are all either mainstream or special state schools.
It used this data to calculate the rate per 1,000 students at risk of intervention and then scaled the results to the national population.
FFT identified students in Year 1 to Year 11 who were still enrolled at their school at the end of the spring term and who met each of the first three proposed circumstances.
Incidence of an excluded pupil being in a public place without reasonable justification during the first five school days of an exclusion was not analysed as part of this research.
FFT said that, by scaling up its data, it found there will have been around 260,000 students nationally who will have met either the unauthorised absence following a leave of absence or the unauthorised holiday criteria.
Scaling its figures to the national population also suggests there were around 410,000 students who missed 10 or more sessions due to unauthorised absence last term. And its overall figure for students meeting one of the three criteria was 550,000.
However, it says this will be an overestimate.
A blog on its website says: “Firstly, schools may have subsequently established the reasons for some unauthorised absences, particularly more recent spells.
“Secondly, the criteria for 10 or more sessions of unauthorised absence or lateness also says ‘where support has not been successful’. This suggests that intervention should only be considered when support has not worked.”
It concludes: “There are around 260,000 students who meet either the unauthorised absence following a leave of absence criterion or unauthorised holiday estimate. So the total estimate of the number meeting at least one of the three proposed intervention criteria in the spring term is between 260,000 and 550,000.”
Students with Send more likely to trigger criteria for fine being considered
Dave Bibby, data scientist at FFT, and Dave Thomson, chief statistician at FFT, said students with Send were “more likely” to “trigger the proposed intervention criteria”.
Its blog added: “Differences between students with Send and other students were greater in secondary schools than primary, with students with Send twice as likely as other students to trigger one of the three criteria.”
Their research also found that disadvantaged students were also more likely to trigger the intervention criteria: They add: “In secondary schools, the rate among disadvantaged students was three times higher than among other students”.
The FFT blog adds that the results suggested it was poorer families “at most risk of fines, at a time when the cost of living is so high”.
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