Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a requirement that schools assign an attendance code to register pupils not attending for reasons relating to the long-term effects of coronavirus.

COVID-19 had a significant effect on pupils' wellbeing, education and attendance, and the Government recognises that the health of some students continues to be affected.

The national attendance and absence codes enable schools to record and monitor attendance and absence in a consistent way and are used to collect statistics through the school census system.

It has been a longstanding practice that where a pupil is absent due to illness, schools will use code I (illness) to record the absence. Illness is not broken down to include specific types of illness, and the Government has no plans to change this for any single condition.

The Department continues to monitor the effect of COVID-19 through a range of channels, including the Office for National Statistics COVID-19 Infection Survey, and support the recovery of children and young people from the disruption of COVID-19 through a multi-year programme with almost £5 billion made available for education recovery.