Importance of IT for poor pupils hammered home by today's attendance figures.

Attendance in England's state schools has fallen to 86.2%. In secondary schools it's just 80%. This is driven by Covid. 557,000 pupils (6-7%) were off on 22nd October for Covid related absence. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1320857278963240960

-10,000 (0.1%) pupils absent with confirmed case of Covid
-33,000 (0.4%) pupils absent with suspected case of Covid
-up to 459,000 (4.8 - 6.0%) pupils self-isolating due to potential contact with a case of Covid
-55,000 (0.7%) pupils in schools closed for Covid related reasons

55% of England's secondary schools had one or more pupil absent for covid related reasons. Factor in the smaller number of primary schools affected (20%) and that's 26% of schools with Covid related absence in England overall, which is up from 21% the week before.

Rising isolation figures/decreasing attendance figs is, as I've been reporting since the weekend, why so many teachers are deeply worried about how they're supposed to keep their kids learning (especially poorer ones) at home if they don't have enough computers for them.

Even when devices are there, not every kid has broadband at home. In the school in Coventry I was at yday,teachers estimate that 27 of the 1400 kids don't have the internet at home. It's not a big percentage but it's a whole class. What happens if they have to repeatedly isolate?

And as I've said- this is more likely to affect poor students. Poor students whose parents are more likely to have to go to work, come into contact with Covid, kid then has to isolate. And poor BAME students who are more likely to live in inter-generational households, same thing

And all of this is why teachers say publicly and privately they think if exams go ahead as normal, it could be an absolute lottery for kids, even more than usual- dependent on where they live, the covid circumstances of their school and region. Especially if the IT isn't sorted.

. @RealGeoffBarton of Association of School and College Leaders: "In this turbulent context, it is crucial that schools are able to provide disadvantaged pupils with laptops so they can work from home if they have to self-isolate and do not have access to these devices..."

"Our impression is that the government has never fully grasped the scale of the challenge, both in terms of the numbers of devices that are needed and over ensuring that families have the connectivity they require."

Have a feeling it's going to become a bigger and bigger issue.

As I've been reporting, government has sent out a lot of devices - they've sent out 340,000. But it's only 14 per school and they're unevenly distributed. The reduction in allocation we saw last minute on Friday night before half term has got many heads fuming.

On a purely practical note, let's assume that 14% of pupils off at anyone time a potential baseline having to self-isolate for Covid.

What's the plan if 14% are off during exams? How will they sit them?

In some schools, absence is much worse than is commonly understood (remember 80% figure is an average). Here is one teacher's experience in the north of England: "At one point we had 2/3rds of our Y11s self isolating for two weeks at home. Some with no computers."

They continued: " Some Y12s have only been in for a few weeks of the first half term as I know of at least 4 who have done two, two week periods of self isolation. Hugely concerning. My Y10 class has gone from 23 to 4 in the last week of half term."

A teacher on the perils of isolation learning: "We have to put the lessons onto Microsoft teams and hope they do the work. In tops sets I'd say around 80% do it, in bottom sets (which also have more disadvantaged students and SEN students) sometimes only 20% do it, if that."

Another teacher: "we've had our allocation of 38 slashed to 8. We had 16 children having to isolate last month after coming into contact with a positive staff member at outreach provision. Only 10 of those were in years 3 or above so we couldn't order any laptops....

"As we are a SEN school laptops are perhaps not the most ideal way to provide remote learning for most of our pupils but the government seemingly have no other options or suggestions for how we do it."

From another teacher: "We sent home the whole of Y11 and y13 to self-isolate after bubbles burst but in the end we sent home every year group other than y7/8 for the last few days before we broke up. We ended up with around 50 teaching staff off, either ill or self-isolating..."

"... On top of this we are trying to minimise the impact of already lost learning time, with minimal or no support from the government/ofqual re curriculum changes.

We’ve been running virtual lessons on google meets but technical issues, students with poor/limited access..."

"...and students/staff themselves who are ill have proved a challenge. It’s also been a challenge to ascertain who has been engaging with virtual learning because of the above so attendance for year groups not in school is extremely hit and miss..."

"... I honestly don’t know how exams can possibly run as normal given the disruption that has already been faced by these year groups, without thinking about what’s coming later."

Remember, save for a three week delay, exams are due to go ahead as planned next summer.

As ever, keen to hear from teachers and heads (and parents and pupils for that matter) about what's really going on schools right now, how they're being run, the IT matters I've been reporting on, attendance and all else besides. DM in confidence.