SCHOOLS in East Lothian saw "significant" attendance issues caused by Covid-19 in the run-up to Christmas, councillors were told.

Nicola McDowell, the council’s head of education, said the situation in schools had deteriorated following the fast spread of new cases sparked by the Omicron variant.

Four classes were closed last week due to staff absences – three primary school classes and one class at Ross High School’s additional support needs unit in Tranent.

And on Friday – the final day of term – only just over half of secondary school pupils attended school in East Lothian.

Attendance rates in schools across the county on Friday were 68 per cent, with 79 per cent of primary school children and just 52 per cent of secondary school students attending.

Speaking to a virtual meeting of the council’s policy and performance committee, Mrs McDowell confirmed concerns raised by members that the virus was having a greater impact in the classrooms than had been seen before.

Asked if she expected the situation to get worse in the New Year, she told the committee: “It is already getting worse in terms of the virus.

“We have significant attendance issues at the moment and, while there are a number of reasons for pupils not to attend, the largest reason is Covid.”

Classes at West Barns, Wallyford and Ormiston Primary Schools were closed last week.

Mrs McDowell later said: "As has been the case throughout the pandemic, the run-up to Christmas has been a challenging period for our schools and young people, who have adapted amazingly well to doing things differently.

"We’re very grateful to our education staff for their fantastic work and to families for their support.

"We know that the ongoing pandemic is continuing to impact on people in terms of self-isolation being required and this, combined with other absence, impacts on attendance.

"We look forward to welcoming children and young people back to school in January, with our school teams having plans in place to support high-quality learning and teaching in the face of ongoing difficulties.”

The committee had been hearing an update on the council’s Covid response during the pandemic.

Councillors were told that out of 25 performance indicators used to track how it was doing, only two fell below the national average – incoming calls from people needing help from the Test and Protect system, and business start-ups.

A report to committee revealed that very few people got in touch asking for support after being asked to self-isolate through Test and Protect, with the average number of calls just one a week.

In contrast, the number of calls and texts made by the council to check on those self-isolating peaked at about 160 a week in September and had fallen to an average of about 60 a week.

The report added: “Very few calls, much lower than the Scottish average, have resulted in requests for support.”

The number of business start-ups in East Lothian had also fallen from 179 in 2019/20 to 62 in 2020/21 and to date this year only 13 had been launched.

Pupil absences over 167 days recorded between August 2020 and October this year showed that, for 100 days, more than 90 per cent attendance rates were recorded, with between 85 per cent and 90 per cent attending on 53 days and more than 80 per cent for 14 days.

Attendance fell below 80 per cent for three days in the summer; however, up-to-date absence rates for this month were not available.