Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) students, (2) teachers, and (3) other staff, at (a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools, and (c) further education institutions, have been reported as having COVID-19 since 31 January 2020.

The department collects data on the number of pupils who have confirmed or suspected COVID-19 on a daily basis. This data is published from this collection at both national and local authority levels as part of the official statistics series. The publication 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. Data is published from 9 September 2020, but prior to 12 October 2020 information on pupils who have confirmed or suspected COVID-19 was not comprehensively collected. This data is collected at school level, not pupil level.

As part of the publication, ‘Attendance in education and early years settings during the coronavirus (Covid 19) outbreak’, staff COVID-related absence data has been included in today’s release.

This data is as reported directly by schools via the department’s daily education settings survey. It is not the primary source of data on infection, incidence and COVID-19 cases overall. Further detail on this, from data owned elsewhere in government such as by Public Health England, can be found within the coronavirus in the UK dashboard: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/?_ga=2.91108568.335840232.1603021384-1347302696.1578321854, national COVID-19 surveillance reports: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports, and coronavirus infection survey pilot statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/16october2020.

ONS has published results from the first round of the COVID-19 Schools Infections Survey (SIS), covering 3 November – 19 November, investigating prevalence levels among primary and secondary school students and staff. The SIS survey link presents a summary of estimates, with further data contained in the associated dataset. Comparisons between groups should be done with caution because of the small sample size. Results can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/covid19schoolsinfectionsurveyround1englandnovember2020.