One in four Hull children absent from school as Covid cases soar

One in four children in Hull are absent from school due to a rapid rise in coronavirus cases, official figures show, as headteachers in the city have warned of a “major threat” to public services unless schools are allowed to partially close.

Figures seen by the Guardian show that 27.6% of pupils were not in school on Monday – compared with about one in 10 across England – equating to about 12,000 children at home.

The data, which has been submitted by school leaders to the Department for Education, shows that just over half of the city’s 97 schools were partially closed on Monday.

Hull is battling what the city council leader has described as an “astonishing and terrifying” rise in Covid-19 cases, which have jumped 10-fold in five weeks to become the highest in England.

Its infection rate stands at 776.4 per 100,000 people, nearly triple England’s average and far higher than other Covid hotspots such as Oldham (598 cases per 100,000) and Blackburn with Darwen (597).

Schools across England are suffering increased disruption due to the pandemic, according to national figures released on Tuesday, showing that about 600,000 pupils were at home last week for Covid-related reasons and almost two-thirds of secondary schools affected.

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Department for Education figures revealed that school attendance fell from 89.3% to 86.5% in the space of a week. The proportion of primary schools affected, reporting one or more pupils in self-isolation, doubled from 11% to 22%.

Secondary schools continued to be worst affected, with 64% sending one or more pupils home to self-isolate as of last Thursday, up from 38% the week before.

Teaching unions expressed alarm at the latest increases and said the situation was not sustainable.

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, called for schools to be allowed to use a planned rota system, with groups rotating between school and home, which would be less disruptive:

“The government has to recognise reality. The current situation is unsustainable,” he said.

Hull’s Learning Partnership, which comprises almost all of the city’s schools, has asked the health secretary, Matt Hancock, to allow them to be able to close for all but vulnerable children and the children of key workers.

In a letter sent by the city’s three Labour MPs, the headteachers said they were committed to keeping all schools fully open but that “as a matter of some urgency” some need to be able to restrict attendance “in order to maintain high quality provision and the morale of all those in education”.

They write: “It is now clear that it has become increasingly difficult to maintain fully open schools due to significant staff absences. The incidence of Covid-19 is at alarming levels in the community … There is a concern that if children of key workers cannot be prioritised for attendance there will be a major threat to the infrastructure in the city.”

Mike Whale, the Hull district secretary for the National Education Union, said the number of school staff self-isolating was “really significant”. The city could “grind to a halt” unless schools were able to open only for children of key workers, he said, due to an increasing number of police, NHS, council staff and fire officers having to stay at home with their children.

Fifty-three of the city’s 97 schools had sent home full year groups or “bubbles” on Monday. The attendance rate was 72.4%, according to data supplied by 78 of the schools, compared with an average of 89% in England’s state schools.

The cause of the exponential rise in cases is thought to be in part because Hull managed to avoid the worst of the first wave and went into September with low immunity, compared with other badly affected northern cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle.

Diana Johnson, the Labour MP for Kingston Upon Hull North, said schools must be given the ability to partially close: “If staffing levels are greatly reduced because of Covid infections, schools could close. Before facing that, school leaders want to be able to move to a position where they could protect vulnerable and key worker children being in school. This seems a sensible and pragmatic move as the numbers of infections in the city are so high.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: “The chief and deputy chief medical officers have been clear the balance of evidence is firmly in favour of schools remaining open, and have highlighted the damage caused by not being in education to children’s learning, development and mental health.”