Commenting on week 29 school attendance figures published by the
DfE, Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National
Education Union, said:
"The new attendance figures show that a quarter of all pupils
were absent from school last week, with over a million being
absent for specific Covid-related reasons. In secondary schools,
a third of secondary pupils were not in class.
'The NEU and many other organisations warned Government that
schools would face severe disruption by the end of term without
compulsory mask wearing, greater mass testing and improved
ventilation. Classrooms should have been full of end-of-year
excitement and children securing the learning of the past year.
This outcome was predictable and is a result of the Government’s
failure to heed warnings, or seemingly to learn any lessons at
all over the 16 months of the pandemic.
'One in 15 teachers and one in 16 support staff were absent due
to either contracting Covid-19, potential exposure to a case or
their school/bubble being closed, over six times the rate
observed at the start of half-term. Education professionals have
been needlessly exposed to serious disease due to the
Government’s failure to tackle the spread of coronavirus in
schools. More than half of teachers are under 40 years old, and
so are unlikely to have had their second jab long enough ago to
gain full benefit. And those with underlying health conditions
face further fears over the ability of the Delta variant to cause
serious illness even among those who have received both jabs.
'The news this week from JCVI that children generally will not be
vaccinated means that the Government must look all the harder at
mitigations that can impede the spread of the virus in schools
from September.
'Even if children who are contacts are not sent to isolation
children who are positive still will be sent home and some of
them will go on to suffer effects of Long Covid.
'We are calling on to announce
what mitigations will be in place for September around mass
testing, improvements to ventilation and testing of close
contacts of children who have Covid."
