ABOUT a third of all youngsters caught skipping school in York were with their parents.

The latest truancy figures from City of York Council show that out of the four anti-truancy sweeps conducted between September 2004 and January 2005, eight of the 28 youngsters stopped were with their parents.

There were 19 youngsters stopped in Acomb, three in the city centre, two in Clifton and four in Tang Hall.

Among the excuses used by those stopped, some said they were off because they were ill, some said they had slept in and others said they were off because of teacher training.

Principal education welfare officer Mark Smith said: "Quite often, parents will ring the school and say their child is ill and then take them out for the day.

"On one occasion we stopped a parent who told us it was the child's birthday, but had told the school the child was ill."

Mr Smith said the figures did not mean there was a specific truancy problem in Acomb, only that more sweeps were conducted there.

During the academic year 2003/2004 the council carried out 14 sweeps, 88 children were stopped, 54 of them were boys and 34 were girls, with 67 from secondary schools and the rest primary.

Of the 88 stopped, 30 had no valid reason for being absent from school.

In February, the Evening Press reported that York education bosses branded as "wrong" figures showing one in every five secondary school pupils in the city played truant last year.

Department for Education and Skills figures showed 1,173 of the city's 5,356 comprehensive pupils skipped lessons at least once up to July.

But Coun Carol Runciman, the council's executive member for education, defended the authority's record, saying the authority had some of its best truancy figures in 2003/4, ranking it ninth best local authority in the country.

She said in primary schools the average pupil took 4.7 half days off and the average secondary student took off 5.6 half days - down on the previous year's secondary figure of 7.89 half days.

Coun Runciman said: "When you compare these figures with people at work, where the rate of absence is quite high, I think we keep much better control of school children's absence."

Labour education spokeswoman Coun Viv Kind said: "I would encourage parents to lay down clear rules that their children should be at school."

Updated: 11:02 Friday, April 29, 2005