MORE than 1,000 pupils were absent from Swindon schools every day during the first term of the school year.

New figures from the Department of Education show that on average 1,289 pupils were out of school each day last autumn.

As 29,000 youngsters are enrolled, this adds up to 80,000 lost teaching days. Though 79 per cent of these absences were authorised, 11 per cent of them had no reason given and a further seven per cent were unauthorised holidays.

Illness accounted for 61 per cent of the time taken off school.

In addition, 3,504 pupils were classed as persistently absent, meaning they missed more than 10 per cent of their total lesson time.

None of the Swindon schools the Adver contacted were available for comment but we asked shoppers for their thoughts.

Nicola Reed from Park North said: “It’s a lot. There should be some explanation as to why they’re missing.

“If it’s illnesses you can’t help it. I don’t agree with the holiday thing where you can’t take kids out of school to go on holiday or you’ll be fined for it, because if you take your kids somewhere in the summer you’ll pay twice as much. It’s hard."

Rachel Watkins from Swindon said: “I don’t really know what the answer is to it because they’ve already started penalising parents for unauthorised holidays and things like that, so I don’t know what more they can do.”

Hazel Anderson from Eldene added: “If they’re older and they’re hanging around the streets all day it’s a different ball game, but for young children I don’t think that’s a lot.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said any absence could affect a child's education. “The rules on term-time absences are clear and we have put schools back in control by supporting them to deal with unauthorised absence.”

Councils can impose fines of £60 on parents, which rises to £120 if the fines aren’t paid within 21 days. Swindon’s secondary school pupils missed 3.4 days of teaching on average - more than primary school children, who missed 2.6 days.