Education: Weather

(asked on 16th December 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many hours of teaching were lost as a result of (a) extreme heat and (b) flooding in 2024.


Answered by
Stephen Morgan Portrait
Stephen Morgan
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 23rd December 2024

From the start of the 2024/25 academic year, schools have had a duty to provide daily attendance data to the department. Attendance data can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-attendance-in-schools.

The department does not specifically collect data on teaching hours lost due to extreme heat and flooding.

It is for individual settings and responsible bodies to determine their approach to closure based on their own risk assessment. Closures should be considered a last resort and the imperative is for settings to remain open, where it is safe to do so.

Where a school was planning to be open for a session, but then has to close unexpectedly, for example, due to adverse weather, the attendance register is not taken as usual because there is no session. For statistical purposes this is counted as a not possible attendance.

Where settings are temporarily closed they should consider providing remote education for the duration of the closure in line with the department’s guidance. Providing remote education does not change the imperative to remain open or to reopen as soon as possible. As set out in the department’s guidance on providing remote education, pupils who are absent from school and receiving remote education still need to be recorded as absent using the most appropriate absence code. Schools should keep a record of, and monitor, pupil’s engagement with remote education, but this is not formally tracked in the attendance register. The guidance on providing remote education is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/providing-remote-education-guidance-for-schools/providing-remote-education-guidance-for-schools.

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