Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teaching hours have been missed by persistently absent pupils with SEND in the 2023-24 school year.

Information on pupil absence, including persistent absence and breakdowns by pupil characteristics, is published in the ‘Pupil absence in schools in England’ statistical release. This can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england/2022-23.

The most recent data available is for the autumn and spring terms of the 2023/24 academic year. Data for the full 2023/24 academic year will be published in March 2025.

Data is collected in sessions as opposed to hours missed. One session is equal to half a day. The number of overall absence sessions for persistent absentees, broken down by special educational need status, can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/dabc07e5-3cb8-48ca-7115-08dd0ae16946.