Youngsters say they were escaping bullying or boredom

The main reason they gave to researchers was bullying, with other reasons including boredom, dislike of particular teachers and wanting to avoid tests.

The findings are in a study of hundreds of pupils from 13 primary schools and 14 secondary schools in seven English education authorities.

In the primaries, 27% of the 662 children interviewed said they had played truant without the collusion of their parents. Of the 528 secondary students, 16% had done so.

The work was carried out by the SCRE Centre at the University of Glasgow for England's Department for Education and Skills.

'Unreliable' statistics

Where parents knew about the truancy, they also often blamed it on school-related causes.

High-profile official policy recently has been to target parents for condoning unauthorised absence. Several have now been jailed.

The researchers say the causes of absence and potential solutions are complex but the key thing is that early intervention is vital in stopping a cycle of behaviour from developing.

One of the problems they point to with official statistics is that different schools define authorised and unauthorised absence differently.

Parents were identifying school-related issues but teachers were identifying home-related issues Researcher Valerie Wilson

"We felt the figures are unreliable because the definitions that people are using are shifting," said the director of the SCRE Centre, Valerie Wilson.

The team's findings about how many primary school pupils have played truant at some point suggest the problem is far more widespread than previously believed.

"I thought that, if they were going to exaggerate because of peer group pressure, it would probably happen more in the secondary sector so in that sense I'm more inclined to believe what the primary pupils said," Dr Wilson said.

Blaming each other

She said there was a clear difference between what teachers thought and what parents thought.

"It seemed to us to be very noticeable that parents were identifying school-related issues but teachers were identifying home-related issues and if nothing else there's an area that needs exploring - that both sides blame the other.

"There is clearly a huge difference of opinion between the two groups."

One of the frustrations for teachers was that efforts to tackle persistent truancy were very labour-intensive - and might not be cost-effective.

Pupils who were regular attenders at school were also resentful of the effect of having non-attenders in their classes.

"They were saying, 'what about us?'

"Some of the pupils who spoke to us were actually sad: they felt if they were paired up for group work with an absentee, they felt let down."

In conclusion the researchers say that early efforts to identify and tackle absenteeism are crucial.

"The earlier the better, I would think," said Dr Wilson. "Better for the pupil, better for the teachers - and probably cost the least."

Preventative measures

The Department for Education agreed that it was important to set good habits early, with prompt intervention to help children establish regular and punctual attendance, and involve parents in the process.

"We need to focus on early intervention and work is being done to address these issues as a key element of the behaviour and attendance strand of the primary strategy," a spokesperson said.

As part of the emphasis on prevention, measures had been put in place such as additional staffing, nurture groups - working with small groups of children experiencing "barriers to learning" - support from multi-agency teams and extended school activities such as breakfast and after school clubs.

Another issue the researchers point to is that there is "an unrecognised problem".

They say that although boys re more likely to play truant than girls in primary school, the position is reversed in the early secondary years - in all-white schools.

This was less likely to be the case in schools which drew their pupils from different racial backgrounds.

They say more investigation of this is needed, but a partial explanation was that girls were more likely to be used by their parents to care for younger children, or would join older boyfriends who had already left school.