school closures | Schools Week

Study reveals full scale of London pupil exodus amid school closures

Nearly 50,000 pupils left London’s schools last year, Datalab study shows, as ministers told to ‘get a grip’ amid closures

Schools plan non-uniform days and early finishes for ‘extreme’ heatwave

The Met Office has warned temperatures could top 35C on Monday

Pupils three times more likely to be self-isolating in north-east than London

Secondary pupils in parts of northern England are more than three times as likely to miss classes while they self-isolate as their peers in London, according to new figures. The average pupil between year 7 and year 10 in a sample of north-east schools missed more than a third of their time in school last […]

School Covid outbreaks near six-month high as Indian variant spreads

Covid outbreaks in schools have reached their highest level since December as the Indian variant continues to spread, official figures show. School leaders called new data on the spread of the Delta variant first discovered in India “concerning”, and said it raised “serious questions” over the decision to drop face covering requirements in schools last […]

Pupils missed 33 million days of in-person education due to Covid last autumn

Pupils missed 33 million days of in-person education because of Covid during the autumn term last year, as schools grappled with the second wave of the pandemic after re-opening. Official figures show the majority – 60 per cent – of pupils saw their schooling affected by the need to self-isolate or shield, often in classes […]

Study to track Covid’s long-term impact on pupils’ life chances

A new study will track Covid’s long-term impact on the life chances of thousands of year 11 pupils. The £4.6 million Covid social mobility and opportunities (COSMO) study will look at the pandemic’s long-term consequences for 12,000 participants’ education, careers and wellbeing. Researchers at the Sutton Trust think tank and University College London plan to […]

Reopening schools ‘almost certainly’ responsible for Covid rate uptick among young people – PM

A slight uptick in Covid rates among young people is “almost certainly” the result of reopening schools, Boris Johnson has said. But a government medical chief said the case rates rise was not a “dramatic increase at this point”, and that the situation was “likely to become clearer over the next two weeks”. The latest […]

DfE officials grilled over Covid-19 response, 7 things we learned

Senior officials from the Department for Education were grilled by MPs this morning about the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. DfE permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood, Covid response director Mike Pettifer and director general for early years and school groups, appeared in front of the public accounts committee. Here’s what we learned. 1. DfE […]

‘Flimsy’ medical evidence for Greenwich schools Covid legal threat revealed

The medical advice received by Gavin Williamson before he used emergency Covid powers to order a London council to keep its schools open has been branded “astonishing” for its lack of evidence. The education secretary issued a “temporary continuation order” on December 14, ordering the London borough of Greenwich to rescind its request for schools […]