Looking at our schools aggregated absences, there is a slight correlation with the data from all schools in England. However, due to a small sample at our school than national, there is more fluctuation, which makes the trend difficult to see and so it makes it hard to draw any accurate conclusions. Although the trend is similar, it is also slightly lower than the national data, which could be due to the positive environment in our school compared to other schools and the willingness of pupils to come to school and put more effort into learning. On the other hand, the reason could be that England is a big place and it snowed a lot more up north, which disrupted pupil’s journeys more and generally made them more ill. Around Christmas, the weather in London was generally milder than in northern England.
The Year 9 data of absences is very similar to the school aggregate, which could be because the majority of the school (including Year 9) do not have exams in January and so would not have pretended to be ill in order to do last minute revision. The most interesting results were that for Year 7 where their absences peaked much higher than our school’s average and national average after the Christmas holidays. This may be the result of their weaker immune systems and the fact that they maybe spend a lot more time touching things and biting nails. Also, it could be due to more of them being on holiday and not coming back in time for school.
The aim was to see the school absences data peak just before people went to their GP and reported flu-like symptoms. However, the most important part of the graph is missing due to the unfortunate timing of the Christmas holidays. The main two weeks of school data is missing which is where it should have peaked and shown a definite correlation. It is therefore unclear what to conclude and we just have to wait until another good, strong outbreak during school time.
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