Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of children classified as vulnerable attended (a) primary (b) secondary school in (i) May and (ii) June 2020.
The table below presents the latest weekly national figures for vulnerable children with an education, health and care (EHC) plan or social worker in attendance in England during May and June 2020.
Date | Vulnerable children with an EHC plan or social work in attendance | Proportion of vulnerable children with an EHC plan or social worker[1] |
7 May 2020 | 48,000 | 9% |
14 May 2020 | 51,000 | 10% |
21 May 2020 | 52,000 | 10% |
28 May 2020 | 23,000 | 5% |
4 June 2020 | 78,000 | 15% |
11 June 2020 | 92,000 | 18% |
18 June 2020 | 112,000 | 22% |
25 June 2020 | 116,000 | 23% |
The data is available at:
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.
Please note that the department has not produced separate figures for the primary and secondary phases.
We have also been monitoring contact between social workers and children in need and can confirm that the vast majority of those vulnerable children on a child protection plan have been seen or contacted by a social worker in the past four weeks.
Full guidance on the definition of vulnerable children and options for continued attendance is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people.
[1] We estimate that the total number of vulnerable children with an EHC plan or social worker in England is 508,255.