Children should go to school if they have a cold, minister warns

Parents should send their children to school if they have a cold, minister warns as number of persistently absent pupils rises

• Nick Gibb told education committee that illness is driving persistent absences
• He added parents are ‘conscious’ about sending children to school with a cold 

Parents should not keep children off school if they have a cold, the school’s minister has warned.

Illness is driving persistent absences as parents are ‘conscious’ about sending their children to school with a cold, Nick Gibb said.

He told the education committee yesterday: ‘One of the reasons for the stubbornness of the decline in absence has been illness.

‘We’ve had an outbreak of flu and scarlet fever and if you look at the composition of persistent absence, two-thirds of persistent absence is illness or medical appointments.

‘There are some longer-term consequences of the lockdown that concerns us and one is that parents have been slightly more cautious about sending their child into school with a mild cold.

Parents should not keep children off school if they have a cold, the school’s minister has warned (Stock Photo)

Illness is driving persistent absences as parents are ‘conscious’ about sending their children to school with a cold, Nick Gibb (pictured) said

‘And we’re trying to emphasise the point that it is the fever that matters.

‘There is a higher caution amongst parents about sending their child into school if they are showing symptoms of a cold or something.’

It comes as new analysis shows a ‘staggering’ increase in persistent absence from schools across the country following the pandemic.

The number of pupils classed as persistently absent rose from 921,927 to 1,672,178 between 2019/20 and 2021/22, data analysis by a team of leading academics found.

During the autumn term of 2017/18, 4.4 per cent of lessons were missed across all state-maintained schools.

But during the autumn term of 2021/22, 6.9 per cent lessons of were missed.

The data, published on the British Politics and Policy Blog, also found that in 2017/18, 11.7 per cent of pupils missed 10 or more sessions – defined as half a day of school.

And in 2021/22, 23.5 per cent of pupils missed 10 or more sessions.

Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter Elliot Major, who was part of the research team, said the rise in absenteeism has been ‘startling’.

He said: ‘This data shows the impact of coronavirus is sadly not just a one-off disruption, from which pupils would soon bounce back.

‘The rise in absenteeism among pupils has been startling and there has been a staggering increase in persistent absence.

‘We now face a national education crisis in the post-pandemic era: a huge slice of the Covid generation have never got back into the habit of regularly attending school.’

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