I have a table definition such as: CREATE TABLE attendance ( attendanceid serial primary key, entered date DEFAULT current_date NOT NULL, absent boolean, authorization text default 'N', timeperiod char(2) check(timeperiod in('AM','PM')), days varchar(10), studentid int, unique(entered,timeperiod,studentid) ) Which is used to record school attendance data. I am now trying to write a query to identify trends in absences by counting the days column and returning any student that has repeated absences on certain days. I am struggling to return anything that does not need further manipulation in Python before being useful. Does anyone have any ideas?