Attendance of pupils in maintained schools: 6 September to 29 October 2021

This headline presents information on pupils in attendance in schools during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The information published for the 2020/21 academic year related to pupils who were physically present on the school premises for at least one school session each day. This allowed us to measure the number of pupils that had direct contact with staff and other pupils at school during this pandemic.

For this current 2021/22 academic year, and following policy decisions on school bubbles and self-isolation we have returned to the definition of pupils in attendance in schools used in our historical statistical publications. This means that the data for this academic year and last one are not strictly comparable.

Analysis of the data for the first few weeks of the autumn term suggests that the current new measure of attendance is around 0.6 percentage points higher than the measure for pupils present used during the previous academic year.

Measuring COVID-19 related absence

In order to measure COVID-19 related absence we use the register codes “[“ (Remote learning due to COVID-19) and “Y” (School-directed absence due to COVID-19). In the published operational guidance for schools these codes are part of the “not required to attend” statistical category but for measuring COVID-19 related absence we have defined them as “authorised absence”. This change is solely for statistical purposes and will allow us to meet the demand for this information by publishing weekly data on COVID-19 related absence.

Currently we do not collect data explicitly on the number of pupils who are absent because they are ill with COVID-19.  These absences are recorded under code “I” (illness). This means that the estimates of COVID-19 related absence are lower than they would be if such absences were included in the figures.

The register codes that define which pupils are counted as in attendance can be found in Table 8 of the accompanying spreadsheet.

COVID-19 incidence in school age children

Trends in attendance are significantly affected by the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases amongst school age children. The latest data from Public Health Wales shows that cases are increasing more at this age group than any other age group.

The Welsh Government announced on 15 September 2021 that NHS Wales would begin to offer the COVID-19 vaccine to young people aged 12 to 15 from 4 October 2021. The rollout of this vaccination programme may also impact on the figures in this release.

Main points

• An average of 85.5% of all pupils were in attendance in school over the week of 18 October to 22 October 2021, down from 87.8% the week before. The figure for 18 October to 22 October 2021 has been revised down from 86.0%. Data for the latest week is provisional. There is no data for 25 October to 29 October 2021 due to the autumn half term holiday.
• 2.0% of pupils were absent due to a known COVID-19 related reason over the week of 18 October to 22 October 2021.
• An average of 1.9% of all primary pupils and 2.2% of all secondary pupils were absent due to a known COVID-19 related reason between 18 October and 22 October 2021.
• For the week of 18 October to 22 October 2021 there was little difference between the percentage of girls and boys attending school. This is different when compared to the pattern seen in our historical publications, where boys have had lower attendance rates.
• Amongst statutory school age pupils over the week of 18 October to 22 October 2021, the percentage of pupils in attendance was highest for pupils in Year 3 (89%) and lowest for pupils in Year 9 (81%).
• The most common reason for sessions missed during the week of 18 October to 22 October 2021 was illness (code “I”), with 7.6% of sessions missed for this reason. The data in this table is a count of half day school sessions missed and is not a count of pupils.

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Quality

A quality report is in development and will be published as soon as possible.

This data is management information extracted from school management information systems once a week. It covers pupils who were in attendance at maintained nursery, primary, middle, secondary and special schools and includes pupils of all ages. It also includes some pupils from Pupil Referral Units.

This data has not undergone the same level of quality assurance as official statistics and the data may be subject to future revisions. The figures for the latest two weeks should be treated as provisional. Earlier figures are final and are not subject to change.

Comparability

All 4 nations are publishing regular data on attendance in school. We do not advise making comparisons between the nations due to differences in data collection methods, presentation and definitions.

Background and context

Schools: coronavirus guidance.

National Statistics status

These statistics are not National Statistics and have been produced quickly in response to developing national and local events.