Record low attendance and significant staff shortages on first day back at school 

Teacher Aisha Heffernan with young students Maisy O’Donnell and Sophie Galvin in Scoil Cliodhna Community National School in Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork.

Principals reported record low student attendances as well as significant staff shortages on the first day back at school today.

The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO)  said it was an “incredibly difficult first day back”, with many pupils and staff members restricting movement due to contracting the virus or being close contacts.

“In order to maximise our chances of providing in-person teaching and learning throughout this term, we again call on Government to reinstate contact tracing in schools,” said INTO general secretary John Boyle.

Reports from Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) members indicated that 15% to 30% of staff were absent due to Covid-related issues, while the Irish Primary Principals’ Network
(IPPN) estimated that schools were down 20 to 25% of staff.

Catríona Hand, principal of Citywest Educate Together National School in Dublin, said that she was down 27% of her staff today, and had to close three classes.

“Today is the first time in over a year that we've had to close a class due to Covid-19, and we hated doing it. 

"Unfortunately it seems that in the coming weeks it will be a case of classes taking their turns being closed. That's not something that we've ever done or that we would do lightly,” she said.

Teacher Niamh O’Connor with young students Sophie Moloney and Guinivere Poulter in Scoil Cliodhna Community National School in Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork.

Ms Hand said that pupil attendance was the lowest in the school’s 10 year history, at 69.5%.

This record low in student attendance was common across the country. 

Aaron Wolfe, principal of Coláiste Éamann Rís in Cork City, said 41% of students were absent today, a number which he says will “only climb higher”.

The difficulty is students being left behind, they're close contacts and out of school for 10 days, they're going to fall behind, or the teacher in class isn't going to move on with coursework because there's so many out.

Pairic Clerkin, CEO of the IPPN, said that student absences in schools around the country appeared to be around 30%.

“Pupil absence was way up. Many schools would have said it was the highest absence rate that they ever experienced, other than a really bad snow day,” he said.

Áine McLaughlin, fifth-year student at Coachford College in Cork, and Cork regional officer with the Irish Second-Level Students' Union, said she was lucky to have enough teachers and students in her school to carry on as normal today.

Áine McLaughlin, fifth year student at Coachford College, Co Cork, said there was an air of 'doom and gloom' hanging over the first day back.

“Talking to people in other schools, there have been very different situations. I’ve heard cases of schools where teachers didn't have classes to teach, or students not even having substitute teachers or subs that can cover material, or entire year groups being told to stay home because there isn't staff to cover them,” she said.

Ms McLaughlin said there was an air of “doom and gloom” hanging over the first day back.

“There was a real sense of anxiety amongst students. People want to be in school, but people want to be in school environments that feel safe to them. 

A lot of people assumed that we would be back to a phased return or a hybrid model of teaching, and there was a lot of relief accompanying that assumption, but when the announcement came that it was a full return to school, that anxiety and that uncertainty has been brought back to the forefront of people's minds.

Unions continue to call for greater support from the Government to keep schools open and limit spread of the virus.

Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) general secretary Michael Gillespie criticised “unfathomable delays” in department decision-making over school safety measures.

“Too often during the pandemic, the department has failed completely to act in a timely manner. For example, TUI first called for CO2 monitors in November 2020, but these were only provided at the start of the following school year, and even then the rollout was inconsistent and delayed,” he said.

The TUI said that the failure to make a decision on the provision of appropriate masks to schools “beggars belief”.

A spokesperson for the ASTI said that the present challenge for schools is “greatly exacerbated by the lack of freely available medical grade masks in schools, and the fact that many classrooms that require Hepa filters do not have them”.