Some of Northamptonshire’s highest-achieving schools for GCSEs have shown that they also excel in another measure - attendance.
The Government has now released its latest absence and attendance figures, covering the full 2023/24 school year. Despite showing a small improvement on the year before, the overall absence rate - the percentage of half-days missed for all pupils - still lingers well above pre-pandemic figures. One in five pupils were also labelled ‘persistently absent’, meaning they are missing at least 10% of these half-day sessions.
Another new Department for Education report has highlighted just how much absences could be impacting young people’s achievement at school. It found 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, compared to those who only attended 90 to 95% of the time. This means that missing just 10 days of school reduced 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. This meant we were able to see which schools had the country’s lowest overall absence rates, as well as the top schools in the East Midlands as a whole for attendance.
With more than 40 state secondary schools across North and West Northamptonshire alone - excluding private and special schools - we’ve also taken a look at how the county fared when it came to pupils attending class. We’ve only included schools with absence rates below 7.5% - a fantastic achievement for their communities and families alike. We’ve also included a few all-through schools, but it is worth noting that their attendance rates may include primary pupils.
Here were the 13 Northants secondary schools that came out on top:
1. Northampton School
This is a new secondary free school in northeast Northampton, in the Moulton area. It only opened to pupils in September 2023. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an extremely low absence rate of about 3.9%. | Google
2. Northampton School for Boys
This is a boys’ secondary academy and sixth form, also in Northampton. It was one of the county’s highest performing secondary schools overall in the last academic year, with a ‘well above average’ GCSE-based Progress 8 score. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an absence rate of 4.52%. | Google
3. Bishop Stopford School
Bishop Stopford is an Anglican secondary academy and sixth form in Kettering, North Northamptonshire. It too is an academic high achiever, boasting a ‘well above average’ Progress 8 score. In the 2023/24 school year, it too had an absence rate of about 4.52%. | Google
4. Wootton Park School
Wootton Park is an all-through free school in Northampton, with GCSE grades for its secondary-aged pupils sitting in the ‘well above average’ band last year. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an absence rate of 5.67%. | Google