Recommendation 9

The Department explained that people had been extremely anxious in the early months of the pandemic and had taken the “stay at home” message seriously, and it had therefore been a challenge to persuade them to send their children to school.12 It said that it had begun to gather information from schools and colleges on patterns of attendance from the first day of the lockdown, and local authorities had given real-time feedback about any issues or concerns.13 It told us that the important thing was that school had been available for the children who needed to be there, and stressed that it had supported vulnerable children whether they were in school or not, including via the regional education and children’s teams.14