Commenting on the attendance statistics for schools in England,
Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the
National Education Union, said:
"Last week’s school attendance figures once again show the
high levels of disruption being caused by the virus - with 13% of
secondary pupils and 8% of primary pupils absent.
"However, these figures were less than the absence rates in
the week before half term.
"This, together with data from Wales (1), confirms once
again the significant role that schools play in virus
transmission, and in turn the significant disruptive effect this
has on education.
"In the week after half term 38% of secondary schools had
to send pupils home because they had coronavirus compared with
46% the week before half term.
"We had called for the Government to implement a circuit
breaker closure of schools for a few weeks to bring the level of
infection down and then to implement measures that would keep it
low thereby minimising disruption.
"The initial figures from Wales show their circuit breaking
lockdown, including secondary school students in year 9 and
above, had a big impact on the infection rate reducing it by
about 40% amongst secondary age
pupils.
"The National Education Union is calling for the Government
to take increased measures to suppress virus transmission in
schools including by:
- Guaranteeing funding of all cleaning and other health and
safety costs
- Ensuring schools are the front of the queue for new raid
tests allowing
- Planning seriously with the sector for the introduction
of rotas in secondary schools, with - Children taught every
lesson, but being at home for some of them.
"These measures can reduce the level of disruption in our
schools. We cannot afford to see infection rates amongst
secondary age pupils rising as they did before half term where
they were doubling every two weeks".
ENDS
Editor's Notes
Source for Wales: Figure 5 Schools and Colleges COVID-19 Summary
Report, http://www2.nphs.wales.nhs.uk:8080/CommunitySurveillanceDocs.nsf/3dc04669c9e1eaa880257062003b246b/4fca746dd30ee1cb8025861700309039/$FILE/Weekly%20COVID-19%20schools%20report.pdf
