attendance | Schools Week

School attendance rises to 16% as key worker numbers leap

School attendance has climbed again to around 16 per cent, with 23 per cent of primary pupils now going to school. Data published by the Department for Education today shows 15.9 per cent of pupils – around 1.29 million children – attended state schools last Thursday, up from 14.9 per cent the week before. The […]

Leaders forced to cap places as school attendance rises

Primaries are being forced to cap pupil places amid soaring school attendance rates as the Covid crisis takes its toll on families. Attendance peaked at 1.2 million last week, meaning that 15 per cent of pupils were in school, the highest level recorded this term. The rise has been driven by an increase in primary […]

School attendance rises to 15%, highest level recorded this term

School attendance rose to 15 per cent last week, the highest level recorded so far this term, new data shows. Attendance survey data published by the Department for Education shows that 1.211 million pupils, 14.9 per cent of the total pupil population, attended school last Thursday. This is up from 1.147 million, or 14.1 per […]

DfE to stop publishing Covid case data for school staff working from home

The government will stop publishing data on the number of school staff working from home because they have a suspected or confirmed case of Covid or are self-isolating. The Department for Education has announced today that from next week, it will only publish information on the reasons for staff absence if they cannot work remotely […]

Fact check: Are school staff at greater risk from Covid-19?

There have been conflicting statements this week on whether teachers are more likely to catch Covid-19. Dr Jenny Harries, the government’s deputy chief medical officer, told MPs there was “no evidenced increased risk” for education staff, but admitted there was still “uncertainty” about the role schools played in transmission of the virus. However, a National […]

Pupil attendance fives times higher than during first lockdown

There are around five times more pupils attending state primary and secondary schools than during the first national lockdown, new government figures have revealed. The latest attendance data from the Department for Education (DfE) shows that as of January 13, attendance was at 21 per cent in primary schools and 5 per cent at secondary […]

Pupil absence due to school closures almost trebled in last week of term

The number of pupils missing school due to Covid-related closures nearly trebled in the last week of the autumn term, with one council area reporting secondary attendance of just 14 per cent. The latest attendance data from the Department for Education (DfE) shows the scale of disruption schools were facing in the same week the […]

Teachers report rise in non-Covid persistent absence

Three in ten teachers have reported a surge in non-Covid-related persistent absences, with the problem more acute in the most deprived schools. Polling by Teacher Tapp for the Centre for Social Justice think tank has found that 30 per cent of teachers said they had experienced more persistent absences that weren’t to do with illness […]

Attendance gap between local authority areas has widened, new data shows

Attendance in state secondary schools still varies massively across England, according to the first regional data published by the government in two months. In fact, the gap between the areas with the highest and lowest attendance rates for secondary schools as of last week had actually widened to 40 percentage points, up from 33 percentage […]