The 13 North West state secondary schools with the lowest absence rates - and the best attendance

The North West is a big region, home to hundreds of excellent, high-performing schools.

But some have also proven themselves to excel based on another important factor - how often their pupils are turning up to class.

Last week, the Government released absence and attendance figures for 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 lingered well above pre-pandemic figures. About 1 in 5 pupils were also classed as ‘persistently absent’, meaning they missed at least 10% of these half-day sessions.

Released just days earlier, another new Department for Education report highlighted the impact this could potentially have on a young person’s 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, compared to those who only attended 90 to 95% of the time. This meant that missing just 10 days of school reduced the likelihood of 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. We’ve also taken a closer look at secondary schools across the North West, to work out the region’s schools with the lowest rates of pupils missing class for any reason.

Here were the 13 schools that came out on top, when it came to attendance: