Truancy rates in Harrow have fallen by just over 30 per cent since 2010 – matching the national trend.

Latest figures from the Department for Education (DofE) showed 1,481 pupils were deemed ‘persistently absent’ in the 2009/10 academic year, compared with 1,033 in 2012/13.

A student would previously have to miss more than 20 per cent of a term to be deemed persistently absent, though this was reduced to 15 per cent by the government in October 2011.

Nationally, truancy rates dropped 30.5 per cent, with Harrow just 0.3 per cent below that figure.

Harrow’s truancy reduction of 30.2 per cent was the third worst across all of the outer London boroughs behind Enfield and Havering.

Greenwich topped that mini list with a reduction of 46.1 per cent.

Conservative MP for Harrow East, Bob Blackman, said: “The evidence shows that persistent absence for school has a serious detrimental effect on pupils’ performance and so it is great news that truancy has dramatically reduced in our area.”