More than 6,000 children missed school in last week due to virus

MORE than 6,300 children missed school on average for Covid-related reasons in Wales last week, but the true figure could be far higher as official data does not include all those off ill with it.

Amid criticism of the way schools Covid data is collected the Welsh Government has announced a “comprehensive review of attendance patterns”.

School leaders said the data does not show the true picture of how much the pandemic is affecting education. Welsh Government school data currently clumps pupils off ill with Covid in the the all-illness category.

Head teachers have warned there is more disruption to education now than at any time in the pandemic.

According to latest Welsh Government figures an average 6,306 children and teenagers were off school for Covid-related reasons from October 4 to 8, nearly 4,000 less than more than 10,000 the previous week.

The data also shows attendance in that period was up from 85% to 87.4% with 1.7% of pupils off for Covid-related reasons.

But heads warn those reasons can only be registered as Covid remote learning or that the child was told by school to go home for Covid-related reasons.

Anyone else, a learner ill with Covid or awaiting a test result, is combined in the general illness data.

It is understood that will now be changed.

School and college leaders have been asking for weeks where all the thousands of pupils not attending are.

They also want to know how Public Health Wales figures show Covid cases rising among under-19s while numbers off school for Covid-related reasons are falling.

In a written statement on Thursday Education Minister Jeremy Miles promised a deeper look at the figures.