Attendance at local authority settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic: 29 June to 3 July 2020

On Wednesday 10 June 2020 it was announced that schools would be open for more pupils from 29 June. The Welsh Government has worked with DataCymru to develop a weekly data collection from local authorities. This captures the number of:

• schools that were open
• children that were invited to attend school
• children who did attend school for at least one session during the week

As at 6 July 2020, full data has been provided by 12 local authorities. These authorities are Denbighshire, Powys, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Vale of Glamorgan, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent, Monmouthshire and Cardiff.

Children in Isle of Anglesey continue to attend their hubs and schools remain closed as a result of the coronavirus outbreak in Llangefni. Water supply issues in some schools in Blaenau Gwent meant that not all of their schools were open.

The key figures for Wales during the week of 29 June to 3 July in the 12 local authorities that provided a full return are:

• 865 out of 873 schools were open (99%)
• around 180,000 pupils were invited to attend at least one session last week
• 115,000 pupils did attend at least one session last week
• of those pupils that were invited, 64% of pupils attended
• 46% of the total number of pupils attended at least one session (based on the total number of pupils in each local authority except those in years 11 and 13)

The data should be regarded as preliminary. Figures have been taken from management information and are subject to change. They have not yet been subject to the same validation processes undertaken for official statistics releases.

We are expecting other local authorities to provide data this week and we will update this information as soon as we can.

Data for the week of 6 to 10 July will be published on Tuesday 14 July at midday.

Schools in Wales have been closed to most pupils since 20 March.

Up to 26 June we collected and published daily information on attendance at local authority settings. This is not comparable to the data presented in this headline.

For further information on the process of reopening schools, please see our guidance on increasing operations in schools from 29 June.

For more general information on coronavirus please see our guidance on Education and child care: coronavirus.

Statistician: Stephen Hughes
Telephone: 0300 025 5060
Email: school.stats@gov.wales

Media: 0300 025 8099

SFR 77/2020