Pupils: Coronavirus

(asked on 15th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) nursery, (b) primary and (c) secondary school children have been (i) sent home or (ii) remained at home due to displaying covid-19 symptoms for each day of September 2020.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 23rd September 2020

Keeping close track of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases in schools is a priority for the Government. The Department is currently collecting data from schools on a daily basis, as well as gathering information from local areas and following up with individual settings to confirm that procedures for requiring pupils to isolate are well understood and that necessary decisions are made on the basis of public health advice.

The Department collects data on the number of schools that have indicated that they have sent children home due to COVID-19 containment measures and have attendance data for schools that have done so. We are currently looking at the quality of the data with a view to publishing it as part of the official statistics series. The series includes published data on school openings and attendance, which shows that over 99.9% of state-funded schools were open on 10 September and that attendance in state-funded schools was 88%. More information 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.

From the autumn term, pupils in all year groups have now returned to school full time. Our latest guidance on full opening sets out the public health advice schools should follow and how we expect schools to operate in the autumn term. The department’s guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.

Public Health England (PHE) leads in holding data on infection, incidence and COVID-19 cases overall. PHE have published data on COVID-19 incidents by institution, including educational settings, which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports (page 16).

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