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Year 11 absence: GCSE concern as students miss 11% of sessions this year

Examinations & Qualifications GCSEs and A Levels Attendance Covid recovery
The attendance of year 11 students has improved slightly this year but is still lagging significantly behind pre-Covid levels, data analysis shows.

Year 11 students are currently sitting their GCSE examinations but data from 2,700 secondary schools in England shows that up until May 19, they have missed 10.9% of possible sessions.

This is an improvement on the year 11 absence rate of 11.7% in the 2021/22 academic year but is still notably worse than the 6.4% absence rate in 2018/19.

The analysis (Beynon, 2023) has been carried out by FFT Education Datalab and comes as we return to pre-pandemic grading for GCSE examinations this year.

However, the analysis does not include the days lost to the National Education Union strike action and suggests that when this lost time is factored in there will be little difference in year 11 absence this year compared to 2021/22.

While GCSE grading has returned to normal, exams watchdog Ofqual has said that procedures for setting grade boundaries this year will ensure that students are protected even if their performance is a little lower than pre-pandemic cohorts (Ofqual, 2022).

Broken down, the attendance figures show that 4.3% of the sessions missed this year have been due to illness, compared to 5.1% in 2021/22 and 2.8% in 2018/19.

Meanwhile 4.5% of this year’s missed sessions were due to unauthorised absence, compared to 3.7% in 2021/22 and 2.1% in 2018/19/

Concerningly, persistent absence in year 11 is high, although broadly improving when compared with last year.

This year, 30.6% of year 11 students have missed 10% or more of sessions compared to 37.2% last year and 16.2% pre-pandemic.

Meanwhile 14.2% have missed 20% or more of sessions this year and one in 20 students (5.3%) has missed at least half of their year 11 education.

The analysis states: “It looks like year 11 faced less disruption this year compared with last year’s year 11s. However, the difference is small, perhaps small enough to be erased completely if we’d been able to capture the impact of strikes this year.

“Either way, it looks like Ofqual’s plan to provide some protection will be needed. What this looks like in practice should become clearer on results day.”