The 10 best state secondary schools for attendance in Wakefield - with the lowest pupil absence rates

From illnesses to unauthorised term-time holidays, many factors can drag school attendance down - but they can all have a significant influence on a child’s outcomes at school.

The Government’s full absence and attendance figures for the 2023/24 school year are out now. They show that the country overall absence rate - the percentage of half-days missed for all pupils - still lingers well above pre-pandemic figures, while the amount of ‘persistently absent’ pupils missing at least 10% of these half-day sessions also remains incredibly high - affecting 1 in 5 children.

It’s GCSE and A Level exam season at the moment, and another recent Department for Education report has shown just how much of a difference attendance can make to attainment. It found that pupils who attended school nearly every day in Year 11 were almost twice as likely to achieve a Grade 5 in their English and Maths GCSEs as those who only attended 90 to 95% of the time. This means missing just 10 days of school slashes the likelihood of getting a strong pass by around 50%.

Included with the Government’s attendance figures was the absence data for each state-funded secondary school in England. We’ve used this to take a closer look into how schools in the Wakefield Council area have done. Only schools with overall absence rates of 10% or lower have been included - excluding private and special schools - an incredible achievement for any school community.

Here were the 10 local secondary schools that met our criteria: