The rate of school pupils in Cumbria persistently absent from school has more than doubled since the pandemic hit, according to new figures.

When looking at Covid’s impact on society over the past four years, analysis of figures from the Department for Education (DfE) showed 14,804 students in state schools across the county missed a tenth or more of sessions – when regarding a school day as being split into two sessions, one afternoon and one morning and every child expected to attend both.

These students accounted for 24.8 per cent of the 59,737 students enrolled in Cumbria during the 2022-23 academic year.

It was up significantly from 10.5 per cent in 2018-19, before the pandemic.

Across England, 1.6 million pupils were persistently absent – making up 21.2 per cent of students.

It slightly improved from 22.5 per cent in 2021-22, but nearly double the level in 2018-19 when just 10.9 per cent of pupils were persistently absent.

In Cumbria, 603,000 of 8,066,000 school sessions were missed.

Of these absences, 1.7 per cent were unauthorised, up from 1.1 per cent in 2018-19.

Nationally, the level of unauthorised absences nearly doubled, from 1.4 per cent of sessions in 2018-19 to 2.4 per cent in the last academic year.

The DfE recently announced a series of measures as part of its drive to boost attendance after the pandemic – including increasing fines for parents taking children out of school without permission.

School absence fines for unauthorised absences currently start at £60, rising to £120 if they are not paid within 21 days.

From this autumn, they will instead start at £80, rising to £160.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Advertising slogans and attendance hubs are just not going to make a tangible difference to pupils who are missing days or weeks of school at a time.

“We have to be far more ambitious.”

A DfE spokesperson said ‘rapid improvement’ is being seen with now 444,000 fewer children persistently absent or not attending last year.

They added some children face more barriers to attendance like long-term medical conditions or special educational needs, and their guidance ‘ensures schools work with pupils and families’.

Cumberland Council said it will keep working with schools and families to encourage school attendance and support schools implementing measures to limit unauthorised absences.

“This includes emphasising the detrimental effect of missing school, as well as applying fines where appropriate and other approaches to secure attendance have failed,” it said, adding a range of measures will be used to tackle the root cause of absence.