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The British government conceded that plans to return children to school in England were unworkable. After weeks of resistance from teachers and local authorities, barely half of the pupils in primary-year groups that could have gone back have done so. The return of pupils to secondary schools has also been postponed until September.
What does the sentence mean? It supposed only half of the pupils would return to school, and then half them did return?
Let's break this down. The starting point is that pupils were away from school. The government permitted some pupils in primary year groups to return to school, but some were not permitted to return. ("Primary year groups" means "in elementary school").
The ones permitted to return are "the pupils in primary-year groups that could have gone back". The sentence is stating that "barely half" of those did actually return to school. "Barely half" means only very slightly more than half.
