Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons schools continue to be required to complete the daily Educational Setting Status form; and for what purpose these data collected are used..

Information gathered through the educational setting status form is used by the department to monitor attendance in schools, and across government to model the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. This allows the department to provide support in developing policies to help schools manage, and ensure our ability to target educational recovery support.

The department is grateful to schools for providing this information. Following the removal of the advice to teach pupils in bubbles, the department has announced that from the beginning of October 2021 schools will only be asked to complete the educational setting status form once a week. This will be kept under review and, should the national situation require, daily reporting may be reinstated.