School absence figures (FOI)

Request

A

Can we see rate of school 'absence' for Year 1 pupils presented in a bar chart, with date along horizontal axis, amount of children marked as 'absent' along vertical.

B

Can the graphs also indicate the specific dates the flu vaccines were administered to this year group. 

Please could we see this data for past 5 years. 

Response

A

Please see spreadsheet attached. This extract looks at pupils between 3 September 2020 and 23 January 2023 who were attending government schools in Year Group 1 in each of the academic years covered.

The data has been extracted from a dataset that was compiled at the beginning of each week from data that schools supplied in the previous week.

Absence includes Authorised Absence, Unauthorised Absence, and Absence due to Covid related reasons.

• Authorised absence will cover a range of reasons such as Illness, Medical appointments, and other events where the school is happy that the absence is reasonable.
• Unauthorised absence again covers a range of reasons, these will cover such arears as a child has arriving after the register has closed and those occasions where a school has not considered the reason given for the absence to be reasonable.
• Covid related absence covers Covid Illness, Isolating, Shielding and Class closures.
• The percentage of absence for the academic years prior to 2020 is not available directly from the reporting system. To produce the requested information would require manual inspection of a large number of files. 

The Department has determined that the time required to undertake this task would significantly exceed the 12.5 hours maximum time limit and therefore Article 16(1) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Attendance data.xlsx

B

Flu vaccine delivered in primary schools to reception and school years 1 to 6 over a two-week period each year are detailed in the table below.

Article applied

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.