Coronavirus: Early years staff absences fall while cases in children grow
Katy Morton
Monday, January 31, 2022
While the number of nursery staff off with Covid has largely fallen, the percentage of children with the virus has increased, new data suggests.
The latest statistics from the National Day Nurseries Association’s (NDNA) reveals on average, 15 per cent of early years staff in the UK who responded to its weekly Covid absence survey were off due to the virus the week commencing 17 January.
This is down from 22 per cent two weeks prior. However, the findings cannot be directly compared as the latest survey received more responses.
A total of 624 settings across England, Scotland and Wales took part in the latest survey, while 471 settings responded for the week commencing 3 January.
Despite a slight drop in the number of staff off with the virus, the data for 17 January, released today, suggests the number of children with Coronavirus is rising.
According to the findings, 11 per cent of children were off nursery with the virus – up from 9 per cent the week commencing 3 January.
A breakdown of the figures shows marginally more children in England have Covid than in Scotland and Wales. However, more staff are off with the virus in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK, with the country reporting staff absences at 23 per cent – a record high according to the NDNA.
Other findings reveal:
- 58 per cent of Scottish respondents reported more than one-in-five staff members as absent.
- Overall, 25 per cent of settings had no staff absent due to Covid-19 and 13 per cent had no children off for the same reason.
'Nurseries are still facing daily pressures from staff absences.'
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of NDNA, said, ‘Our data for the third week in January shows that nurseries are still facing daily pressures from staff absences, although the staff absence numbers have eased slightly. Absences among children appear to have risen, which means more are missing out on time in nursery.
‘Responding nurseries are saying staff are still more likely to be out of settings than children and so ratio flexibilities will remain important for providers. We have welcomed recent announcements by Ofsted, Care Inspectorate and Welsh Government on steps to make sure settings are not put under further pressure at this crucial time, with inspection deferrals, limits to on-site inspections in Scotland and temporary relaxations in Wales.
‘We will continue to collect and collate data for another week and will be publishing the data for the full month of January.’
