Schools ‘abandoned’ by living with Covid

Head teachers have accused the Government of ignoring the problems coronavirus is still causing in schools.

New figures show pupil attendance levels in schools in England was 89.7% in the week to April 7 – with 8.2% of teachers and 7.6% of teaching assistants also absent.

But the figures no longer contain a break down into those who are absent for “Covid-related” reasons.

They do show that 18% of schools had up to 15% of teachers missing and 46% had an absence rate of up to five per cent.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “The Government’s decision to stop collecting any data from schools relating to Covid absences means it is no longer possible to draw any conclusions from these attendance figures as to what the Covid situation really is in schools.

“These changes are deeply troubling and illadvised, and seem symptomatic of the Government’s wider attempts to try to just pretend that the pandemic is over. The ‘living with Covid plan’ is increasingly looking like an ‘ignoring Covid plan’ when it comes to schools.”

He added: “This data does show that disruption is clearly still very high.

“Making such changes when staff and pupil Covid absences remain high makes very little sense and a lack of upto-date information raises serious questions about the Government’s ability to respond quickly should cases start to rise or new variants emerge. An absence of information does not equate to an absence of Covid. School leaders feel they have been abandoned.”