Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to reduce (a) pupil and (b) staff absences in special needs schools.

Our priority is to maintain high quality face-to-face education for all children and young people, including those in specialist settings. We recognise that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has caused challenges for all schools. Whilst Plan B was in place, we took steps to make sure that children and young people in special schools continued to receive the support they needed to engage in education. Our operational guidance for special schools and other specialist providers made clear that specialists, therapists and other health professionals who support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) should provide interventions as usual.

All schools, including special schools, benefit from the full range of measures the government has put in place to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission, minimise disruption to education and limit absences. These include regular testing and continuing the booster rollout for adults and vaccinations for secondary age pupils. Special schools were also able to apply for our funded air cleaning units earlier than other settings, with the first 1,000 units reserved for SEND and alternative provision (AP) settings, enabling them to reduce airborne contaminants in poorly ventilated spaces where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible.

We know that special schools and AP settings are often more impacted by staff absences, and less able to manage these absences using their existing staff and resource. The department has set a lower threshold for these settings to access the COVID-19 workforce fund, which provides financial support to eligible schools and colleges where needed. This fund has been extended until spring half term to cover the cost of term-time staff absences experienced between 22 November 2021 and 18 February 2022. The fund can be used by schools to employ supply staff to manage absences, increase the hours of part-time teaching or education support staff, or make amendments to support staff terms and conditions so they can take on additional responsibilities. Any changes should be discussed with the employee first, and schools should consider workload and wellbeing.

Finally, the department has a developed a comprehensive attendance strategy that has been implemented since the beginning of this academic year. The department has also recently appointed a team of expert attendance advisers who will work closely with local authorities and multi-academy trusts to improve their attendance levels and reduce persistent absence.