More than 15,000 public school students have skipped a week or more of school this year without a valid reason, attendance figures show.

Data obtained from the WA Education Department revealed 15,184 students were reported as absent without an acceptable reason for six or more consecutive days of school in the first half of this year.

More than 7000 of those students, or 48 per cent, were listed as absent because they went on holiday during term time.

WA Secondary School Executives Association president Armando Giglia said principals were fighting a constant battle to convince parents not to take children out of school during term time.

“Sometimes you get an education experience by travelling around and seeing things, but that’s got to be with the family and more than just a holiday,” he said. “But just going to Bali for two weeks, I don’t consider that to be anything like an education experience.”

Despite a recent focus on improving attendance in WA public schools, the overall average attendance rate declined from 90.9 per cent last year to 90.7 per cent this year.

The figures also showed an increase in the number of children classified as “at severe attendance risk” for attending school less than 60 per cent of the time. There were 11,213 students in that category this year compared with 10,956 last year.

The number of students listed as truanting after a teacher or parent witnessed them leaving school grounds without permission fell from 7430 to 6489.

About 200,000 students, or 71.8 per cent, attended school regularly — or more than 90 per cent of the time.

Kimberley schools had the worst attendance of the eight education regions, with only 40.5 per cent of children attending school regularly, followed by the Pilbara (54.5 per cent), the Mid West (55.9 per cent) and the Goldfields (57.3 per cent).

Schools in the North Metropolitan region had the highest attendance, with 76 per cent of students going to school on a regular basis.

No parents faced prosecution this year as a result of their children’s non-attendance, though 158 responsible parenting agreements were issued and 20 attendance panels were formed to work with students persistently absent from school.

The department’s acting Statewide services executive director, Martin Clery, said it was the law that all school-age children should be in school or another approved education program.

He urged parents to take their children’s attendance seriously, to avoid missing out on vital building blocks in their learning. “No one wants to see children left behind,” Mr Clery said.