Pupil attendance at maintained schools in Wales: 7 September to 16 October 2020 (provisional)

Quality

This data is management information provided by local authorities in Wales. It covers attendance at all maintained nursery, primary, middle, secondary and special schools and includes pupils of all ages. The data is collected every day.

This data has not undergone the same level of quality assurance as official statistics and the data may be subject to future revisions. The figures should be treated as provisional.

From 2 October onwards the published figures will not include results for Cardiff as the local authority work to improve the quality and consistency of their data. These issues have led to Cardiff consistently reporting attendance figures that are lower than all other authorities, and as the largest authority in Wales this has had a measurable impact on the attendance rates for Wales. Over the period 25 September to 1 October the attendance rate for each day in Wales excluding the data for Cardiff would have been at least 1.5 percentage points higher. For example, attendance for 1 October excluding the data for Cardiff would have been 84.9% rather than the published 83.4%.

We will include the data for Cardiff as soon as the data issues have been resolved. Comparisons of the data from before and after 2 October should be avoided until this is resolved.

Main points

Data has been revised from Monday 5 October onwards following updated data from local authorities.

• 81.8% of pupils attended school on Friday 16 October, down from 84.1% the previous day.
• The weekly average attendance for the week commencing 5 October was 84.7%, continuing the upward trend in attendance.

Background and context

The Education Minister announced ‘back to school’ plans on 9 July. This included a two week period from 1 September where schools could have the flexibility to focus on priority year groups. The first day that all pupils were expected back in school was Monday 14 September.

Operational guidance for schools from the autumn term was published on 13 July and includes guidance on the recording of attendance.

From Wednesday 16 September 2020 onwards we will be publishing this information every day at 9:30am. We are doing this to provide an up to date and timely summary of attendance patterns in schools in these unique circumstances as they open their door to all pupils from 14 September. We will keep the frequency of publication under review and will adapt as necessary based on changing circumstances and user feedback.

Local authority data for the previous week will be published every Wednesday from 24 September 2020 onwards.

National Statistics status

These statistics are not National Statistics and have been produced quickly in response to developing national and local events.