Asked by: Linsey Farnsworth (Labour - Amber Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what is the total number of school days lost by teaching staff due to the incidence of infectious disease in (a) primary (b) secondary schools in England in the school years 2024/25 and 2025/26 and the proportion of all teacher school days this represents.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested is not held centrally.
The department collects absence data for teachers and teaching assistants employed directly by state-funded schools via the school workforce census. This includes absences due to sickness but does not include the reason for the sickness absence. Each census collects data for absences from the previous academic year. The latest data available covers the 2024/25 academic year and is published in the ‘School workforce in England’ statistical publication, which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
Asked by: Linsey Farnsworth (Labour - Amber Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what is the total number of school days lost by pupils due to the incidence of infectious disease in (a) primary (b) secondary schools in England in the school years 2024/25 and 2025/26 and what proportion of all pupil school days this represents.
Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not collect data on absence due specifically to infectious disease.
The closest available measure is absence due to illness. In 2024/25, illness accounted for 2.83% of all possible sessions in state-funded primary schools and 3.61% in state-funded secondary schools. These figures are based on school census data, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/71a4148c-f739-4adc-9a80-08dee27f7d76.
For 2025/26 to date, illness absence has accounted for 2.81% of possible sessions in primary schools and 3.63% in secondary schools. Data for 2025/26 is based on daily attendance data and may be subject to change as registers update. Details are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/cfdaf89b-050d-4c76-179f-08dee28a6f1d.