Pupils skip a month of lessons

MORE than 200 youngsters in Oldham skipped the equivalent of more than a month of lessons in just one term.

In secondary schools across the borough 179 pupils (1.2 per cent) failed to turn up for 46 half-day sessions in the autumn term last year — more than a third of the entire term.

Across primary schools there were 56 (0.3 per cent) persistent absentees.

Across England, 0.3 per cent of primary school pupils and 1.3 per cent of secondary students missed more than a month of lessons in the short period.

The figures from the Department for Education show the truancy, or unauthorised absence rate, for state primary schools in Oldham was 0.7 per cent compared to 0.6 per cent nationally. For secondary schools it was 1.2, the same as the England average.








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