MORE THAN 10,000 CORONAVIRUS CASES IN SCHOOLS IN SEPTEMBER

MORE than 70,000 children were off school in Wales for at least one session last week, including 10,000 for Covid-related reasons, most of them secondary age.

Latest Welsh Government data shows tens of thousands of school sessions have been missed this term with more than one in 10 pupils not in the classroom in the week to October 1.

The report comes as head teachers repeat warnings of chaos in some schools with so many pupils and staff absent. School leaders said returning to classrooms with fewer infection mitigations this term had brought more Covid in, causing the worst disruption to learners and teachers since the pandemic began.

There were more than 10,000 cases of coronavirus in schools in September, separate Public Health Wales figures show.

Latest Welsh Government school attendance figures for September 27 to October 1 show only 85% of the 474,724 pupils in maintained schools attended school in that period, a slight improvement on the previous week but still an absence rate of 15%.

That is nearly 10% above prepandemic absence levels and barely any better than attendance rates at the height of the pandemic last academic year.

The current 85% attendance rate is just 0.6% per centage points higher than last academic year, the report said. But it stressed that figure may improve when the data is reviewed next week.

The report shows that between September 27 and October 1:

85% of the 474,724 children and teenagers in maintained schools were in attendance;

2.3% of all pupils were absent due to a known Covid-19-related reason – more than 10,900;

1.7% of all primary pupils were absent due to a known Covid-19related reason – more than 4,629; and,

2.4% of all secondary pupils were absent due to a known Covid-19 related reason – more than 4,170.

Eithne Hughes, director of the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru, said more information was urgently needed on why so many children are missing school for reasons other than Covid.

And she repeated warnings that it is not business as usual for pupils or teachers, although plans for exams and the new curriculum next year are going ahead.

She said numbers absent, and the reasons for absences, were still not entirely clear.

“In pre-pandemic years attendance was around 94%. Now we are looking at 85% with 3% given for a Covid related reason. That means we have 88% attendance without Covid related reasons but that is still 6% less than pre-pandemic.

“Where have those 6% gone? That’s what we don’t understand. We need to interrogate the data. We can’t put in interventions if we don’t understand what interventions are needed (to improve attendance).

“We are still in a period of instability. This is the greatest disruption learners have faced so far during the pandemic.

“The effect of this is obvious. We still don’t have stability or recovery. It is not normal or business as usual in schools this term.”

The Welsh Government was approached for comment.

Attendance rates by percentage of students for each school year group from Sept 27 to October 1