Sheffield is home to dozens of excellent primary schools, which make sure the young pupils in their care have mastered essential skills by the time they depart for secondary school.
But many of them also excel in another, complementary metric, one a recent Department for Education report suggests might be just as important - attendance.
The report found that pupils who attended school nearly every day in Year 6 were 1.3 times more likely to meet the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths compared to pupils who only attended 90-95% of the time. This means missing just 10 days of school cuts their chances by around 25%.
Nationwide, England’s attendance rates could be better. The Government’s latest absence and attendance figures, covering the full 2023/24 school year, show that 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 missed at least 10% of these half-day sessions.
We’ve taken a look at how the more than 150 primary schools in the Sheffield City Council area stacked up - including including infant and junior schools - when it comes to pupils missing class for any reason over the last academic year. Using this data, we have created a league table for parents, featuring the city’s state-funded schools with the lowest absence rates.
Here are the 15 Sheffield schools that came out on top:
1. Bradfield Dungworth Primary School
At the top of the list is this small primary academy in the hamlet of Dungworth, near Storrs to the west of the city. It has a roll size of about 135, and a higher-than-average proportion of pupils meeting the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an overall absence rate of 3.1%. | Google
2. Dobcroft Infant School
This is a local authority-maintained junior school for pupils aged 3 to 7, in the Millhouses part of the city. It has about 300 pupils. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an overall absence rate of 3.3%. | Google
3. St Thomas of Canterbury School
St Thomas of Canterbury is a Catholic primary academy in the Meadowhead area, with a roll size of about 228. It had a higher proportion of its pupils meet the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths than both the Sheffield and national averages. In the 2023/24 school year, it also had an overall absence rate of 3.3%. | Google
4. Totley Primary School
This is a primary academy in Totley, on the southeastern edge of the city. It has about 423 pupils, and a notably higher-than-average amount meeting Government standards. In the 2023/24 school year, it once again had an overall absence rate of 3.3%. | Google