Number of students heading back to class continues to climb post lockdown

Rear view of large group of students raising their arms to answer the question on a class at elementary school.

More kids returned to schools and early learning centres on the second day of opening at Alert Level 2.

Attendance data provided to the Education Ministry showed 500,959 students were at school yesterday, up from 388,473 on Monday.

Yesterday 1,819 schools provided data, an increase from Monday. Despite all schools being back in operation, more than 600 schools still did not give information to the Ministry. 

"This is a new process that Early Learning Services and Schools are getting used to and as such we have not received all attendance data," the Ministry stated.

The average student attendance rate across schools that did respond was 81 per cent, an increase of one per cent from Monday.

For early learning centres, 2,483 services reported 70,577 children attended onsite learning yesterday.

An average attendance of enrolled children from these services is 57 per cent, up four per cent from Monday.

The regions with the greatest attendance of students at schools were Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast, Otago and Southland at 90 per cent.

Otago and Southland also had the highest attendance for children enrolled at early learning services, at 65 per cent.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins has previously said participation is expected to continue to grow over the coming weeks.

“Eight weeks to be locked down at home is a long time and it is a bit of a culture shock to come back out again, so we're going to need to support families as they go through that process.

“The more we can have kids back in school, the easier… the better it’s going to be for the kids,” he said. 

Good hygiene measures are in place as students head back to school today, the Prime Minister said.

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