Recommendation 16

We asked the Department why some schools had felt unable to offer places to children with EHC plans. It told us that the situation changed over the course of the pandemic – for example, attendance of children with EHC plans grew from about 5% in March 2020 to 27% by June, and during the period of disrupted schooling which started in January 2021 the figure was around 37%. But the Department also conceded that there had been regional and school-to-school variation in attendance. It told us that schools’ levels of confidence in making judgements on which children were safe to attend school varied, and that in the future it might look at how to improve the advice and support available to help schools make these decisions.30