School attendance is predicted to drop even further next week as parents withdraw their children to avoid them having to isolate in the summer holidays.
With Covid cases on the increase, there are fears that being identified as a contact in the last week of term could scupper long-awaited plans to see relatives and go on planned holidays after schools break up.
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Schools are able to relax bubble rules from next week, but the need for Covid contacts to self-isolate will remain in place until August.
Covid: Pupil absence from school on the increase
The latest Department for Education figures show there were 820,000 pupils off school last week for Covid-related reasons.
Three-quarters of a million of these were isolating after coming into contact with a case of the coronavirus.
Of these, 624,000 came into contact with the virus at school - 8.4 per cent of all pupils.
But less than one in 10 of the pupils off last week actually had Covid or a suspected case of the virus.
James Bowen, the director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union said: “We are picking up on reports of parents saying they will keep their child off school next week to avoid being asked to self-isolate during the school holidays.”
David Phillips, a headteacher and member of the Association of School and College Leaders’ council for the East Midlands, said: “The prospect of parents withdrawing students was perhaps inevitable as families wish to protect quality time together and that has been exacerbated by the uncertainty surrounding arrangements in the last week of term for some schools.”
One headteacher, who asked to remain anonymous, told Tes that his school had already seen parents keeping pupils off after it experienced more Covid cases in recent weeks than it had done in the entirety of the pandemic before this.
He said: “Yes, [parents keeping pupils off] is certainly something that has started to happen this week.
“We’ve had 33 positive cases since 22 June, having had only 17 in the entire pandemic beforehand.
“One class has just come back in and, within two days, two further children have tested positive.
‘A sad end to the term’
“Parents are understandably concerned that beginning an isolation period now would mean the first week of the holiday being affected.
“It could be they have plans to meet up with family, some of whom could be vulnerable.
“Or they could have a UK holiday booked. Many parents are in the NHS, care workers, drivers, cleaners - this might be the first chance to have a holiday in a long time. I do feel great sympathy for them… it’s such a sad end to a term, a term which traditionally is full of trips.”
