Data set from Attendance in education and early years settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

Table 1D - Daily workforce absence in education settings during the COVID-19 outbreak (excludes half term dates 19th October - 23rd October and 2nd November)

Not the latest data

Published 9 March 2021

Last updated 9 March 2021

This file contains workforce absence statistics for education settings from 12 October to 17 December, for dates excluding half term dates. Half term includes  19th October - 23rd October, and 2nd November 2020. 

Data is in this file has been scaled to account for non-response so it is nationally representative.

---

On this page

Data set details

• Theme: COVID-19
• Publication: Attendance in education and early years settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
• Release: Week 10 2021
• Geographic levels: National
• Indicators:
  • Number of teachers and school leaders absent for non covid-19 reasons
  • Number of teachers and school leaders absent with a confirmed case of covid-19
  • Number of teachers and school leaders absent with a suspected case of covid-19
• Filters:
  • Date
  • Phase of education
• Time period: 2020 Week 42 to 2020 Week 51

---

Data set preview

Table showing first 5 rows, from underlying data

time_period	time_identifier	geographic_level	country_code	country_name	date	phase	number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_on_roll	number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_with_a_suspected_case_of_covid_19	proportion_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_with_a_suspected_case_of_covid_19	number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_with_a_confirmed_case_of_covid_19	proportion_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_with_a_confirmed_case_of_covid_19	number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_isolating_due_to_contact_in_school	proportion_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_isolating_due_to_contact_in_school	number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_isolating_due_to_contact_outside_school	proportion_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_isolating_due_to_contact_outside_school	number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_for_non_covid_19_reasons	proportion_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_for_non_covid_19_reasons	number_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_on_roll	number_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_absent_with_a_suspected_case_of_covid_19	proportion_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_absent_with_a_suspected_case_of_covid_19	number_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_absent_with_a_confirmed_case_of_covid_19	proportion_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_absent_with_a_confirmed_case_of_covid_19	number_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_isolating_due_to_contact_in_school	proportion_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_isolating_due_to_contact_in_school	number_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_isolating_due_to_contact_outside_school	proportion_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_isolating_due_to_contact_outside_school	number_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_absent_for_non_covid_19_reasons	proportion_of_teaching_assistants_and_other_staff_absent_for_non_covid_19_reasons
2020	Week 42	National	E92000001	England	12/10/2020	State-funded alternative provision	5054	26	0.5	12	0.2	84	1.7	60	1.2	239	4.7	6099	42	0.7	24	0.4	51	0.8	75	1.2	207	3.4
2020	Week 42	National	E92000001	England	12/10/2020	State-funded special	21918	150	0.7	134	0.6	530	2.4	215	1	963	4.4	65097	287	0.4	259	0.4	1514	2.3	621	1	2780	4.3
2020	Week 42	National	E92000001	England	12/10/2020	All state-funded schools	480654	2572	0.5	2040	0.4	5758	1.2	4669	1	16562	3.4	653091	2248	0.3	2188	0.3	7364	1.1	4913	0.8	18392	2.8
2020	Week 42	National	E92000001	England	12/10/2020	State-funded primary	240218	1014	0.4	991	0.4	3351	1.4	2277	0.9	7686	3.2	409371	1398	0.3	1443	0.4	4847	1.2	3127	0.8	11449	2.8
2020	Week 42	National	E92000001	England	12/10/2020	State-funded secondary	213465	1382	0.6	901	0.4	1793	0.8	2116	1	7674	3.6	172523	521	0.3	462	0.3	953	0.6	1091	0.6	3955	2.3

---

Variables in this data set

Table showing first 5 of 24 variables

Variable name	Variable description
date	Date
number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_for_non_covid_19_reasons	Number of teachers and school leaders absent for non covid-19 reasons
number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_with_a_confirmed_case_of_covid_19	Number of teachers and school leaders absent with a confirmed case of covid-19
number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_absent_with_a_suspected_case_of_covid_19	Number of teachers and school leaders absent with a suspected case of covid-19
number_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_isolating_due_to_contact_in_school	Number of teachers and school leaders isolating due to contact in school

---

Footnotes

1. The following education settings are included: academies (including free schools and studio schools), local authority maintained schools (excluding local authority nursery schools), non-maintained special schools, alternative provision and university technical colleges.
2. The purpose of this data collection is primarily to understand attendance and teacher availability. This data is reported directly by schools via DfE's daily education settings survey. It is not the primary source of data on infection, incidence and COVID-19 cases overall. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published an analysis of the number of school workers who have had COVID-19 within their Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey publication on 6 November.
3. Workforce data, including workforce number on roll information which is needed in order to calculate percentages, was collected from 12 October.
4. All national level figures are adjusted for non-response. Regional and local authority level figures are based on responding schools only. See accompanying document for full methodology.
5. Workforce absences are not known in closed schools. This means these figures are likely to be under-estimates of the numbers of workforce with confirmed or suspected cases and self-isolating, particularly when the proportion of schools closed for COVID-19 related reasons is higher.
6. An error was identified that affected national level absence rates for ‘teaching assistants and other staff’ published in underlying data table 1D and included in the narrative of the 19 January publication. This data, including the 19 January narrative, was corrected on 28 January. Absence rates at local authority level in table 1C, equivalent national-level absence rates for ‘teachers and school leaders’ and the number of ‘teaching assistants and other staff’ absent for each reason in table 1D were unaffected.
7. Absence rates for teaching assistants and other staff are likely to be less robust as more work part-time. There are likely to be inconsistencies in how schools treat part time staff in their reported data, for example some may update their on roll numbers daily to account for part-time staff ‘expected’ to be on-site and others may not.

---

Using this data

• Download the underlying data as a compressed ZIP file

• View or create your own tables

  View tables that we have built for you, or create your own tables from open data using our table tool

---