Nearly a quarter of Manchester children miss at least a month of school a year

Nearly a quarter of children in Manchester missed around a month or more of school in the last academic year, according to the latest council data available. School attendance in the city was 'strong', according to town hall bosses, but 23.5 pc of children were absent on one in 10 days in the last academic year.

The level of persistent absenteeism - the proportion of pupils whose school attendance is 90 pc or lower - was 20.3 pc in Manchester's primary schools. But in secondary schools, 24.7 pc of students missed around 19 days or more with the highest levels of persistent absenteeism identified in years 8 and 9.

And the figures for non-mainstream schools are higher with 54 pc in special schools and 74.7 pc in Pupil Referral Units recorded as 'persistently absent'. Since January 2022, 453 pupils had an attendance record of 20 pc or lower.

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Manchester council is 'proud' of its overall school attendance record which was 93 pc last year – expected to be above the national and regional rate. It comes after Covid lockdowns and restrictions regularly disrupted schools for two years and continued to affect attendance after the rules were relaxed.

However, local authority leaders say school attendance levels, which are yet to return to what they were before the pandemic, are still not 'good enough'. They have promised to tackle persistent absenteeism in the new school year.

Speaking to councillors at a scrutiny committee meeting on Wednesday (September 7), director of education services Amanda Corcoran said Manchester usually has a higher attendance than elsewhere in England. She said: "It's good comparatively, but it's still arguably not good enough. We