More pupils attending school following half term

According to the latest DfE stats, school attendance has risen to 89.3 per cent following the half-term break, from the 86.2 per cent attendance reported in schools as of October 22 (the last week before half term).

There was 92 per cent attendance recorded in state primary schools and 87 per cent in secondaries as of Thursday, November 5,compared with 90 per cent at primary level and 82 per cent at secondary the week before half term.

However, the DfE has warned that comparisons of the two figures should not be compared as a number of schools were on half-term on October 22, saying that the better comparison is attendance figures in the week of October 15. However, attendance for October 15 was 89.2 per cent, meaning this week’s figures only constitute a 0.1 percentage point rise.

The report also stated around four per cent of pupils did not attend school for Covid-19 related-reasons on Thursday – accounting for around 327,600 pupils.

Again this is a notable drop from the last time the figures were reported when around 573,300 pupils were absent. Of these pupils, 0.1 per cent of pupils were off with a confirmed case of coronavirus and 0.3 per cent with a suspected case of coronavirus. Between 3.2 and 3.7 per cent of pupils were self-isolating due to potential contact with a case of coronavirus, while 0.3 per cent accounted for pupils who were in schools closed due to Covid-19 related reasons.

Furthermore, the percentage of schools reporting pupils self isolating dropped from 21 per cent, on October 15, to 16 per cent last week. This equated a drop from 46 to 38 per cent for state secondaries, and 16 to 11 per cent in primaries.