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Indicators of progress: Definitions, data, baseline and trends information

Milestone 10: Reducing by a third the days lost every year through exclusion from school and truancy

Indicators

Data required to measure exclusion and truancy directly is not available, and in keeping with previous reports it is measured by two proxy measures. The first indicator is defined as the total number of half days unauthorised absence - which includes truancy, temporary exclusions and family holidays where attendance is otherwise unsatisfactory, but not removals from the register. A second indicator records the number of half days lost through temporary exclusions. Temporary exclusions are a subset of unauthorised absence.

Data for the number of removals from the register is also included this year.

Availability of data

Information on unauthorised absence is available at Scotland level from the academic year 1995/96, and includes stages up to and including secondary S5. Information is not available disaggregated by gender or disability. Information on ethnicity is available for the number of temporary exclusions only.

Information on removals from the register is available from 1998/1999 onwards and is available at Scotland level only, but does allow analysis by ethnicity at Scotland level.

All data relates to publicly funded schools only.

Unauthorised absence including temporary exclusions

Chart 10a shows that in primary schools since 1995/96, the number of half days unauthorised absence (including temporary exclusions) has almost doubled from 278 thousand to 555 thousand in 2000/01. There has been an increase of 30 percent between the baseline year (1998/99) and 2000/01.

Chart 10a : Unauthorised absence - Primary schools

Source : Scottish Executive

Chart 10b shows that in secondary schools unauthorised absence was relatively constant between 1996/97 and 1998/99, but the figure for 2000/01 of roughly 1.6 million half days unauthorised absence is a 7 percent increase on the level recorded in 1995/96. The change between 2000/01 and the baseline year represents an increase of 21 percent.

Chart 10b : Unauthorised absence - Secondary schools

Source : Scottish Executive

Temporary Exclusions

Temporary exclusions are a subset of the unauthorised absence dataset, and are measured as the number of half days lost to temporary exclusion and the number per 1,000 pupils. It is available from 1998/99.

In Primary schools around 36 thousand half days are lost to temporary exclusion, whereas in Secondary schools the figure is around 290 thousand half days. This means that in Primary schools for every 1,000 pupils 84 half days were lost in 2000/01. The figures for Secondary school show that on average every pupil misses one half day per year due to temporary exclusion.

Chart 10c: Temporary Exclusions

Source : Scottish Executive:
Note : figures for 1999/00 have been revised.

Removals from the register

This is measured using the total number of incidents of removal from the register and is available for the years 1998/99 to 2000/01. Table 10d shows that there has been a decrease in the number of removals from the register in 2000/01, and the figure of 322 is 6% lower than that for the baseline year.

Chart 10d : Removals from the register

Source : Scottish Executive

Ethnicity

This analysis is available for the number of temporary exclusions and removals from register. Table 10e shows the number of temporary exclusions and the number of removals from the register during 2000/01. No data is available on the total number of pupils from each ethnic background.

Chart 10e : Number of exclusions, by ethnic background

Source : Scottish Executive

Deprivation analysis

In general, levels of unauthorised absenteeism are higher in schools with high levels of deprivation (measured by free school meal entitlement). However there are many schools which do not follow this trend. Table 10f shows that in the 20% of primary schools with the highest levels of free school meal entitlement, the rate of unauthorised absenteeism is over three times higher than in the other 80% of schools. In secondary schools the general pattern is the same but the gap between the 20% of schools recording the greatest levels of deprivation and the other 80% of schools is narrower.

Table 10f : Unauthorised absence and deprivation: Percentage of sessions missed due to unauthorised absenteeism

Source : Scottish Executive

Rural and Urban analysis

Table 10g presents a snap shot of the differences between urban and rural schools for the academic year 2000/01. The rural urban classification applied to the analysis is that developed for use in the Scottish Household Survey. For further detail refer to annex A. The main indicator has been split into two constituent parts, unauthorised absence due to temporary exclusion, and other unauthorised absence.

In both primary and secondary schools, and for both indicators, there are generally decreasing rates of absenteeism as the categories become more rural. For example, the figures show that absenteeism rates in city primary schools were on average five times higher than in remote rural primary schools.

Table 10g: Urban and Rural analysis for 2000/01

Source : Scottish Executive

Note: The rural urban classification applied to this analysis is that developed for use in the Scottish Household Survey. More detail on this classification can be found in Annex A

Background data

Table 10h shows the percentage of half days that pupils could attend school that are lost through all categories of unauthorised absence.

Chart 10h : Percentage Unauthorised Absence

Source : Scottish Executive

Chart 10i: Number of half days unauthorised absence (000s)

Source : Scottish Executive

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