Early years attendance improves - but numbers still lower than pre-Covid
Katy Morton
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
The latest Department for Education (DfE) statistics show that while the number of children in early years settings has risen since last month, attendance is still down on pre-pandemic levels.
The DfE estimates that on 14 October, 751,000 children were attending childcare – about 59 per cent of the number that usually attend settings during term-time.
This is an increase of 54,000 children on the number that were attending settings on 16 September however.
The DfE says that due to many children attending settings on a part-time basis, it would not expect all children to be in attendance on the day of the data collection.
On a typical day in the autumn term, it expects attendance to be 912,000, due to different and part-time patterns of childcare during the week.
It estimates therefore that 751,000 children attending early years as of 14 October is approximately 82 per cent of the usual daily level.
School figures
The same data includes figures for school attendance, and shows that 90 per cent of pupils were in state funded schools on 14 October.
Attendance in primary schools was 92.3 per cent, down from 92.6 on 30 September.
The DfE estimates that 2.6 per cent (209,000) of all pupils on roll in state-funded schools did not attend school for Covid-19 related reasons on 14 Oct, up from 2.5 per cent (204,000) two weeks prior.
The National Education Union (NEU) and the Labour party urged the Government to put more control measures in place to reduce the rate of Covid-19 infection.
Joint general secretary of the NEU Dr Mary Bousted said, ‘The rise in pupils absent due to a confirmed Covid diagnosis is a continuing source of alarm.
‘We believe the Department for Education should be following the control measures in place in Scotland, where there is significantly less disruption to education. In particular, we think the Government need to bring back mask wearing in secondary schools, and to ask pupils who are a close contact of someone with coronavirus to take a PCR test before they return to school.’
Shadow education secretary Kate Green MP added, ‘Labour has been urging the Government to get a grip, introduce the ventilation measures that Sage recommended over a year ago and start harnessing community pharmacy and vaccination centres to get jabs out to teenagers who want to protect their family and friends.’
- The latest DfE attendance figures are here
