Terri White: How I fear for the ‘ghost children’ missing from school

Now, there are 134% more “ghost children” than before the pandemic, according to analysis of the government figures by the centre-right think tank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ). The number of severely absent children in autumn 2019 – the last full term before lockdown – was 60,244. The latest figure, from summer 2022, was 140,843.