More pupils have been missing school on Fridays since the COVID-19 pandemic because parents tend to work from home on those days, a parliamentary committee was told.
An analysis of attendance data from before and after the pandemic suggests some pupils are now not going in to school on Fridays, a trend which did not exist before the pandemic, said Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England.
She told the Education Select Committee of the House of Commons on Tuesday: “We’re seeing a huge amount of Friday absence that wasn’t there before. Parents are at home on Fridays. We’ve had evidence from kids, ‘Well, you know mum and dad are at home, stay at home.’…