Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he plans to take to (a) support pupils who continue to experience periods of absence from their schools and (b) mitigate the impact that those periods of absence may have on their end of year results.

Regular attendance at school is vital for pupils’ education, wellbeing and long term development. Settings have the flexibility to prioritise recovery support for pupils most in need, guided by the level of individual need and led by the evidence of what works to improve outcomes, which may include attendance. Funding to support this includes the recovery premium for this academic year, and the £1 billion announced at the spending review for the next two academic years.

Although attendance is mandatory, there will be specific instances where pupils who test positive for COVID-19 or present with COVID-19 symptoms cannot attend school on-site but are well enough to learn from home. Where remote education is needed for those pupils, schools are expected to offer pupils 3-5 hours of remote education per day, dependent on key stage, which should include recorded or live direct teaching alongside time for pupils to complete independent work. A comprehensive package of support continues to be available to schools to help them meet our expectations for remote education, accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/get-help-with-remote-education.

It is the government’s firm intention that examinations and assessments should go ahead next year. However, we recognise that students may continue to face disruption to their education due to uncertainty about the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. For exams in 2022, we have confirmed a package of measures to help mitigate any disruption, which includes adaptations to GCSE, AS and A level examinations.

The package of adaptations includes a choice of topics or content on which students will be assessed in GCSE English literature, history, ancient history, and geography, and advance information of the focus of exams in all other GCSEs and all AS and A level subjects to support revision.

Ofqual’s approach on grading for 2022 also recognises the disruption experienced by students taking exams next year. Ofqual has confirmed 2022 will be a transition year for grading and has set out its plans for grades to be set around a mid-point between 2021 and pre-COVID grades.