The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) is so concerned by dramatically increased rates of Covid absence that it has written to new education secretary Nadhim Zahawi pressing him to act.
School leaders also want to know why the roll-out of the promised 300,000 CO2 monitors is taking so long. It comes as the number of pupils absent from school due to Covid passed 200,000.
A survey of school leaders from the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) found that a quarter of schools were already exceeding the Covid infection thresholds as identified in the government’s contingency guidance (DfE, 2021a).
Geoff Barton, ASCL general secretary, said he was “disturbed” by the “grim” attendance statistics and called on Mr Zahawi to act.
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