Learn the lesson and don't fail class of 2021

More than a million children have been missing school in recent weeks – numbers unprecedented in peacetime.

- WES STREETING

This risks permanently damaging children’s education and development.

Differences in attendance also risk creating a terrible new North-South divide, with entire communities of children simply being left behind.

Exams regulator Ofqual has warned that the gap in learning loss across different regions is “one of the most intractable issues” and “fraught with difficulty”. It’s a huge challenge.

Pupils in some of the worst-affected areas in the North, like Greater Manchester, have lost out on significant amounts of schooling compared with places in the south – like Cornwall – that have had far fewer Covid cases.

The problem is that the Government doesn’t even seem to appreciate the scale of this challenge.

It hasn’t even been publishing the data showing the levels of absence in different parts of the country.