Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many children in (1) primary,
and (2) secondary, schools in England were absent the weeks
commencing (a) 10 January, (b) 17 January, and (c) 24
January.
(Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on
the Order Paper. I declare an interest, in that my 10 year-old
grandson, Oscar, currently has Covid.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
My Lords, I am very sorry to hear about the noble Lord’s
grandson. I hope that he recovers speedily.
Absence data is collected by the department on a termly basis,
but we publish fortnightly data on on-site attendance in
state-funded schools. The latest data, from 17 to 20 January,
shows that average secondary attendance was 86.7%, unchanged from
the previous week, while primary attendance was 89.4%, down
slightly from 91.8%. Absence figures specifically for
Covid-related reasons are published fortnightly, and were 5.7%
and 3.4% in primary and secondary in the week of 17 January, and
3.7% and 3.5% in primary and secondary in the week of 10
January.
(Lab)
I am very grateful for the kind words of the Minister.
The latest ONS figures for last week show over 600,000 primary
school children not in the classroom. This would be worrying at
any time, but obviously with the statistics relating to the
national tutoring programme at a miserable 15% of their target,
the remedial action that is needed is clearly not working. Can
the Minister go back to the department and work out what has
happened with the contract which was relet last September?
(Con)
The noble Lord is right to raise the issue of the 600,000
primary-age children not in school, although I remind the House
that there is a clear expectation that all schools offer
high-quality remote learning. We are working very actively on the
national tutoring programme contract and are confident that we
will reach our objectives.
(LD)
My Lords, as well as the absentee rates in schools, as the
Minister knows we have hundreds of thousands of children not in
school at all. They are missing from the system. Some may be home
tutored, but we do not know that. What plans have the Government
got for those home tutors to register their children, so that we
know they are safe and know where they are?
(Con)
I am pleased to update the House that, this morning, we announced
our response to the Children Not in School consultationand have
confirmed that we will be setting up a register of home-schooled
children.
(CB)
During the pandemic schools were provided with laptops to support
students during the national lockdown and any future school
closures. These laptops were delivered without software,
anticipating that schools would need to install the programmes
applicable to their own school context. However, in some cases,
these devices still have not been used, as this added to the
already stretched capacities of existing IT staff, who did not
have the additional hours needed to install software or set up
the laptops sufficiently. Do the Government have any information
about how widespread this problem was and how many laptops remain
unused?
(Con)
The laptops that were distributed in the department’s Get Help
with Technology programme are owned by the schools, trusts, local
authorities and further education institutions concerned. It is
those institutions which are responsible for making sure that
they are safe and secure. We are offering support to those
organisations to take urgent action to reset devices and to apply
their own safeguarding measures, and we are making grant funding
available to them to contribute to the technical support costs to
which the noble Baroness refers.
(Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the grandfather of two primary
school children who have caught Covid and who are now at home. Is
my noble friend confident that the catch-up plan will be robust
enough to deal with the slightly uncertain total number of
children who are missing vital education at this stage? That is
the assurance that many parents who are now returning to work
would be very pleased to have.
(Con)
My noble friend is right to highlight this. I will try to set out
for the House that our approach is genuinely comprehensive. Last
week, we announced a consultation on new attendance measures and
we are consulting on behaviour and exclusion, which, less at
primary but more at secondary, is a material issue for
attendance. We made direct investments through the £1.3 billion
of recovery funding and the £1.5 billion tutoring programme.
Schools have the flexibility to direct that to the most
disadvantaged children, so that they can catch up fastest.
(Ind Lab)
My Lords, following the answer the Minister has just given, I
wonder if she is aware that, unsurprisingly, a survey by Teach
First found that teachers in the most disadvantaged schools
strongly believe that attainment would be greatly improved if
attendance could be improved. What specific measures are being
brought in to improve the attendance of children, particularly in
primary but also in secondary schools? What kind of monitoring is
being done to find out which of these measures are most effective
and which do not work?
(Con)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving me the opportunity
to set this out in more detail. Attendance is an absolute
priority for this Government, both because children obviously
cannot learn if they are not in school and because of the
well-recognised impact on their mental and physical health. We
have already announced a team of attendance advisers, who will
support schools, and we are open to piloting new approaches to
supporting attendance. The Secretary of State has established a
national attendance action alliance with key actors from across
the sector and we will focus in the consultation on getting
consistency in both the attendance policy of a school and the use
of different sanctions for non-attendance, which very much vary
across the country.
(Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a donor to various charities
in the children’s sector. Given what the Minister has just said,
will there be any special focus in those measures and the
catch-up programme on children with SEND?
(Con)
My noble friend is right to focus on children with special
educational needs. School is absolutely the best place for them
to be, too. Throughout the pandemic, we have consistently
prioritised children with special educational needs—for example,
through the education recovery funding and by providing
additional uplifts for those who attend specialist settings,
including specialist units in mainstream schools. I am sure that,
for the most part anyway, the House will share in the good news
that at-risk children aged five to 11 are now eligible for the
vaccine and its rollout has started.
(Lab)
My Lords, the ongoing disruption caused by absences of pupils and
teachers is evidence that the Government have failed to get a
grip on the measures required to keep children learning, whether
that is from the supply of testing kits or classroom ventilation.
Schools that ended the requirement for pupils to wear face
coverings last month, in line with government guidance, are now
reinstating it because of the upsurge in Covid cases. Part of the
effect of the January disruption was that some pupils were unable
to sit their mock exams. What plans are in place to ensure that
those pupils are not disadvantaged as a result when it comes to
the real thing?
(Con)
I think the noble Lord is being a little harsh: 99.9% of schools
have stayed open. I know that he, with me, will recognise and
deeply thank head teachers and all the teaching and associated
support workforce for making that happen and for the flexibility
they have shown. On Monday, we will announce the advance
information about exams. The evidence from the VTQ January series
of exams is that it has gone extremely well.
The Lord Privy Seal () (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, wishes to speak
virtually and it is a convenient point for me to call her.
(LD) [V]
My Lords, DfE guidance to schools, updated on 20 January, told
heads that
“A director of public health might advise you that face coverings
should temporarily be worn in communal areas or classrooms”.
What would the Minister say to the head who is asking all pupils
to wear masks until further notice, as one of their pupils has
leukaemia and is severely immuno- compromised? Why have the
Government, whether the Department for Education or the
department of health, not given advice to these pupils, their
families and their schools?
(Con)
The noble Baroness raises a very specific point. The department’s
advice would be to talk to the director of public health and our
teams, who are available and have been offering support to
schools around the country, throughout the pandemic.
