Attendance percentage calculator
Enter how many sessions were attended and how many were possible. The percentage appears as you type — and below it, what that figure actually means.
Calculator
How attendance percentage is worked out
Divide the sessions attended by the sessions possible, then multiply by a hundred.
171 ÷ 190 × 100 = 90%. A pupil who missed nineteen sessions out of a possible hundred and ninety attended ninety per cent of the time.
What counts as a session
English schools register twice a day — once in the morning and once in the afternoon — so one school day is two sessions, and a 190-day school year is 380 sessions. If you are working in days rather than sessions the arithmetic is identical; just be consistent, because mixing the two is the most common way these figures come out wrong.
A tutor running one lesson a week should count lessons, not days. The percentage means “of the times you were expected, how often did you come”, whatever the unit.
What the figure means
| Attendance | How it is usually read |
|---|---|
| 97% and above | Excellent |
| 95% to 96.9% | At or above the usual expectation |
| 90% to 94.9% | Below expectation — worth a conversation |
| Below 90% | Persistent absence |
Below ninety per cent is the line the Department for Education calls persistent absence. It sounds like a lot of attendance, and it is not: ninety per cent across a school year is about four school weeks missed. What persistent absence means →
Authorised absence still counts as absence
This is the part people most often get wrong. Authorising an absence records that you accepted the reason — illness, a medical appointment, approved leave. It does not remove the absence from the calculation, and the attendance percentage is the same either way.
What the authorised mark changes is what gets noticed. A run of absences nobody authorised is worth a conversation today; the same run with reasons attached usually is not. More on what the distinction changes →
A percentage needs enough sessions to mean anything
One missed session out of one is nought per cent, and nought per cent is not evidence of anything. Before a percentage can be below ninety without a single absence dragging it there, you need at least ten sessions — one absence in ten is exactly ninety per cent.
So treat a percentage from a handful of lessons as noise. Early in a year, a run of consecutive absences tells you far more than the figure does.