AN outbreak of the winter sickness bug swept through schools in one part of Gwent earlier this year and has hit attendance figures.
Education officials say they are now encouraging parents to send children to school when they have a “cough or a sniffle” but acknowledge this is contrary to advice issued during the Covid pandemic.
School attendance has failed to recover to the levels before the 2020 pandemic when education was disrupted due to lengthy lockdowns that closed schools.
Attendance at primary schools in Torfaen in 2019/20, the last full year before the pandemic, was 94.8 per cent, but that dropped to a low of 90.81 per cent in 2021/22 but has been creeping back up and in April this year stood at 93.12 per cent at its 25 primary schools.
For secondary schools the 2019/20 figure was 93.9 per cent with a low of 83.78 per cent in 2021/22 and improved to 89.21 per cent in April across six schools.
A report for the borough council’s education scrutiny committee said there are currently four primary schools in Torfaen with higher attendances than they had before the pandemic.
But Andy Rothwell, the council’s head of learning and achievement, said when he checked the very latest figures the night before the May 7 meeting attendance at one had dipped back below that benchmark.
The education officer suggested a bout of the winter sickness bug, norovirus, was to blame.
He said: “We had a mini wave of norovirus that went through schools from February to April and the Easter break managed to calm things down. Events like that impact school attendance.”
Mr Rothwell said the council’s environmental health department had also been involved in responding to the outbreak at the school, which he said he wouldn’t name.
Victoria Horler, a parent governor member of the committee, asked if the council differentiates between medical issues and other reasons when recording absences.
Mr Rothwell said education officials collate and monitor monthly data and if they spot shifts will look at “attendance codes” with illness identified as an I code which was apparent at the school.
He said the council’s ‘Not In Miss Out’ campaign intended to encourage attendance also aims to get parents to send children feeling under the weather into school.
“Part of the Not in Miss Out campaign is saying to parents it’s okay for your children to come to school if they’ve got a bit of a cough or a sniffle. If they are really poorly, or there is genuine medical condition, we don’t want them to be in school we want them at home recovering but equally, if they’ve got a bit of a cough or the sniffles, it is okay to go into school.
“Part of that is messaging. Covid changed that as during Covid times, and after, a lot of messaging was ‘if you’ve got a cough, stay away’.”
Unverified data provided by the Welsh Government shows attendance in Torfaen has moved above the Welsh average with the borough’s attendance rate joint sixth best of the 22 local authority areas in Wales. Two years ago, Torfaen was at 17 of 22 in attendance league tables.
Primary school attendance in Torfaen currently ranges from a low of 91.13 per cent to a high of 95.77 per cent and in secondary schools the lowest figure is currently 85.69 per cent and the highest 93.97 per cent.