Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many school (a) staff and (b) pupils have received positive covid-19 tests since 1 September 2020.

Keeping a 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. This is 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. The Department is currently looking at the quality of that data 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 per cent of state funded schools were fully open on 24 September. Of all schools that responded to the survey, 6 per cent said they were not fully open due to suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 on 24 September. Approximately 88 per cent 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.