Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Centre for Social Justice’s report entitled Lost but not forgotten: the reality of severe absence in schools post-lockdown published in January 2022, what estimate he has made of the number of children who are absent from schools (a) by education authority and (b) who are eligible for schooling on the Isle of Wight as of 31 January 2022.

Overall absence data is collected in the termly school census collection and figures for January 2022 are not yet available at this time. Full year figures for the 2020/21 academic year will be available from 24 March 2022, including by amount of absence.

The department currently publishes on-site attendance and COVID-19-related absence data at a national level on a fortnightly basis and at a local authority level on a half-termly basis. Data covering 31 January 2022 will be published routinely, on this basis.

The latest published local authority level data ends in Week 50 2021. During the 2021 autumn term, at a national level, on average 89.8% of pupils were in attendance on-site and 2.3% were absent for COVID-19-related reasons. Over the same period, on the Isle of Wight, 88.5% of pupils were in attendance on-site and 2.9% were absent for COVID-19-related reasons.

The full most recent national, regional and local authority data can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.

National level pupil data can be found in Table 1B of the underlying data files, whilst local authority data can be found in Table 1C.