I'm using Excel to record and track my students' attendance and assessment.
I would like to know how to get Excel to count up the number of sessions
students have attended class, so I can then get it to calculate the
percentage of classes they've been present.
I have been inputting attendance into columns by date, as P for Present and
A for Absent (with other codes such as M for Medical).
I need Excel to count up the number of Ps, but so far I can only get it to
count the number of cells containing numbers rather than letter data.

Can anyone help me?

Many thanks