Around 3.7 million school days were missed last autumn as pupils skipped lessons without permission, official figures show.
On a typical day in autumn 2011, around 55,600 youngsters missed class through truancy, according to an analysis of Government statistics.
Around 48,000 children missed a month or more of lessons, making them "persistent absentees".
Figures published by the Department for Education (DfE) show that the truancy, or unauthorised absence rate, for state primary and secondary schools in England for the autumn term of last year stood at 0.9%.
This is around the same as the same term in 2010, when the rate stood at one percent.
In primary schools alone, the truancy rate for last autumn was 0.6%, while in secondaries it was 1.2%.
In total, pupils missed 19.5 million school days as the overall absence rate fell from 6.1% in autumn 2010 to 4.7% for the same term last year, the statistics show.
Ministers said that the fall in the overall rate was down to less children taking time off due to illness, and fewer pupils going on holiday during term time.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb said that a child's academic achievement "suffers permanently" when they miss a substantial amount of term.
"Today's figures show a welcome fall in absence due to lower levels of illness last year and a fall in the number of children taking time off to go on holiday," he said.
"Such absence is still a problem but it is clear that more head teachers are refusing simply to wave through parents' requests to take their children out of school for term time holidays.
"And increasingly parents understand the damage that can be caused to a child's education from missing even a day or two of school."
