Pupils: Coronavirus

(asked on 28th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children have been sent home from school due to a covid-19 outbreak since March 2020; if he will publish the number of those children who have been sent home who have been counted in his Department's attendance figures; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 1st October 2020

Keeping close track of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases in schools is a priority for the Government. Public Health England (PHE) leads in holding data on infection, incidence and COVID-19 cases overall. PHE have published data on COVID-19 incidents by institution, including educational settings. This data can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports.

The Department is currently collecting data from schools on a daily basis, as well as gathering information from local areas and following up with individual settings to confirm that procedures for requiring pupils to isolate are well understood and that necessary decisions are made on the basis of public health advice.

The Department collects data on the number of schools that have indicated that they have sent children home due to COVID-19 containment measures. We are currently looking at the quality of the data collected with a view to publishing it as part of the official statistics series. The series includes published data on school openings and attendance, which shows that at a national level approximately 93% of state-funded schools were fully open on 24 September. Of all schools that responded to the survey, 6% said they were not fully open due to suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 on 24 September. Approximately 88% of all children on roll in all state-funded schools were in attendance on 24 September. More information is available at:
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.

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