If you work in education, what do you think is causing the current attendance issues?

[NeedAnUpgrade]

I’ve read quite a lot on this recently. DD1 is 10, she’s always been reluctant to go to school. She had a spate of UTIs, stomach aches, headaches etc. She’s had a bit of time off sick but we only triggered the attendance letter recently as it went below a certain threshold. DH and I have always done our best to get her into school, being reassured that she’s ‘been fine all day’ by her teachers. It all came to a head this year (yr 5) after a complete meltdown, several anxiety attacks and refusal to leave the house. She’s now on a reduced timetable at school and on the waiting list for an ASD assessment.
Academically she’s ahead but just can’t seem to cope with the school environment.

I’m just wondering what those who work in education think the issues are. Am I just a terrible parent? Although I’m not sure what else I could do. I suspect a complete lack of funding in education has had the biggest impact on schools and students. Especially those with SEN.

This is such an important post.

School can be a very frightening place. My memory of secondary school ( 80s) was the constant underlying sense of threat of violence and bullying. And I was lucky that I was never really bullied! I can’t imagine what is was like for the kids who were.

At secondary school you are basically locked up ( metaphorically) with a whole load of barely controlled teenages, all in rebellious, status seeking, wanting to fit in, not be bullied mode, and one way to make sure you aren’t bullied is to be a bully., and all with under developed empathy. And then you have very few adults keeping control on all this, and often not even present.

@Magnoliasunrise I think that would be game-changing (as long as it's not replaced with something also high stakes but classroom based).

I mean I did very well in my exams, but when was the last time someone asked me what I got in double science? Probably when I walked through the doors of my 6th form. It in no way determines the rest of your life.

My daughter did the exact same thing

i took her out to home educate her and haven’t ever looked back!

My youngest hates school she doesn’t see the point in it. She is very much a product of covid with her 1st two years of education being heavily disrupted. She lost 2 grandparents during 2020 in the space of 6 months and has issues now with loss and change. The 3 weeks they had off over Christmas has proved hard so trying to get her to go in each morning since they have been back is a challenge. I work from home some of the week and she plays on that as she knows I don’t have to commute anywhere. It’s a harsh place to be in. The school were great and she had two years of extra emotional support but now they don’t have the amount of hours in school available for support so this has stopped. She has good coping mechanisms for when she does feel anxious but her reluctance to go in each morning hasn’t changed. I feel really sad that at 9 years old she feels this way. She’s above target for her age in maths and literacy so there isn’t a learning issue it’s just she’s rather feel safe at home with me .

I’m sorry, but I live in Wales and have spent time in foundation phased classrooms and my experience is that the learning is not play based.

What happens is that the children concertina between playing ( which the teachers ignore) and formal teaching from a teacher or TA. That is not play based learning. In play based learning the teacher observes children’s play and using that to extend the child’s learning through play. I never saw that happen in a classroom in Wales.

Furthermore, as the play is concertina’s in happens in such small bursts that the children are not able to develop the rich, detailed play where rich learning would take place. In fact I have seen children upset and frustrated at having to dismantle detailed play and creations to attend formal sit down learning.

I think the givernment focus on a certain type of very draconian behaviour policy plus a high stakes, high pressure inspection regime with attainment the only measure worth anything (value add is totally gone!). These have made mainstream schools almost impossible for special needs children who could have coped in mainstream in the 90s fine. For many other children with additional vulnerabilities due to mental health or personality it’s also tipped them over the edge from being a bit anxious to having a mental health crisis and being petrified in school.
Teachers and TAs are on the verge of breakdown too which won’t be helping.

We should have come back from covid with relationships, friendships, play, mental well-being no etc for a year as the main measure of success. We should have given centrally funded sabbaticals to schools staff and health staff.

This obsession with catching up had the exact opposite of the desired impact.

Oh well, there's that solved then!

Sorry, what the hell???

Lockdown. Anxiety. School system struggling under heavy demands as a result.

Arrogant people not understanding how completely heartbreaking it is to see your child struggling in this way, despite doing all you can to help them and saying idiotic things like "parents working from home".

Exactly

And How many of them do you think there are??

I haven't RTFT but my thoughts are that it is a combination of factors at play, exacerbated by COVID lockdowns. Here are my thoughts:

1. Lockdowns knocking everything out of kilter for young people. Particularly for preteens / teens, when their peers are so important, lockdowns removed normal social interaction. It also meant that normal routines were removed and children no longer had to manage everyday dealings with noise, small scale conflicts with others etc. It wasn't just immune systems that took a massive hit in resilience, but our children's general ability to cope with everyday life. For those with certain SEN, the impact was all the greater. Additionally, I think there was a rise in illness following lockdowns and sudden social mingling after weeks of isolation and I think some parents are quicker to keep children off now following COVID and school closures / partial closures.

2. A rise in parents unable to tolerate their children's distress and support them to develop coping skills and resilience, instead deciding that their child is different from others and unable to cope with school. I am not saying at all that there aren't young people with SEND for whom the school environment presents genuine challenges but there are lots of children who simply don't like school, don't enjoy noisy classrooms, don't like busy corridors, don't like school rules, don't like being challenged on their behaviour/manners etc etc and who have parents who allow them to stay at home instead of helping them to develop coping skills.

3. As a PP said, schools (especially those within certain academy chains) have become rigid places, with draconian attitudes to discipline, often inconsistently applied. There is a lack of extra curricular opportunities and music / drama / culture. So much joy has been removed from the school experience for our young people in the name of "high expectations" and results. It's perfectly possible to have both.

4. Behaviour in schools at an all time low - again, I think this is due to a melting pot of factors with COVID as an exacerbating factor. As a result, school pastoral resources are focussed on a minority who are causing really significant disruption to learning and the safety of the school environment. This means that lots of children - those who are compliant and want to do well, those who are naturally quieter and also those with SEN, are given far less in the way of school's human resources and far less thought goes into how to make sure their school experience is as high quality as it can be, because the vast majority of effort and time is going into managing the minority of students causing behaviour issues. When children see that they aren't important and that those students causing constant disruption are the ones who get special dispensation/treatment, why would they want to come to school?

I am sure there are other factors at play that I haven't thought of but those are my initial thoughts.

Couldn't agree more. WTF is happening here!!! I utterly despair! Everybody's dc seem to have ADD/ADHD/SEN/ANXIETY/Mental health issues. This was happening BEFORE Covid, so can't blame everything on that.
I worry for their future😫

Is it partly also that, since covid, people have become more thoughtful and considerate about not spreading their germs around to other people? I would like to think so.

Have you tried speaking to your dd about it? It sounds as if she might be unhappy, perhaps from bullying at school or friendship issues or maybe anxiety. When I was little I had tummy aches daily for years because of anxiety (stemming from a phobia I had). I only really understood and realised it when I was older. So my issue was not to do with the school really, but something else. Not all dc dislike school. My dd absolutely loves going to school now. She has not missed a day at her new school (she just started secondary). She thinks holidays are too long because she wants to get back to school. Her previous school, she did not mind going....but was not as enthusiastic bc she would get bored (was not stretched enough).

Try speaking to your dd and see if she will open up.

??
You're is a contraction of you are. I don't get what you mean.

Could have written this almost word for word, dd15 (and I) are literally counting down the days until she is free from this prison.
I too went to the same school DD attends and didn’t particularly enjoy my time there but this is on another level.
Warnings (and even attentions) for the most ridiculous and basic of issues. Teachers at the point of breaking and shouting and arguing with the pupils, endless/pointless emails about nothing in particular and teachers leaving in droves.

It was even worse for DS18 as he had MH issues at school including school refusal and although he is now thriving I am still struggling with the stress it caused, it was an awful time and the absolute lack of care or help from the school (all they were co concerned about was their box ticking not my ds welfare or MH, no help from the school at all just lots of false promises. I had to find outside help). When Covid hit my ds was so much happier and then of course struggled going back.

Roll on June, can not wait.

My youngest hates school because there is a lack of supervision and a lot of children with additional needs. He’s in reception and told me the other day he’s fed up with being hit and the teachers doing nothing about it.

Right from the age of 4 we are showing children that violence goes unpunished and no one has time to listen to them. I can’t afford to home school or go private.

Hi, do you know which episode that was? I would like to listen to it too but can't find by searching the name x

I enjoyed school in the 1980/1990s. It was interesting though certainly not perfect. I’d never tell my DC this but their experience of school seems to me to be ridiculously hyperfocused on yep, uniform and attendance to the exclusion of all else that is normal.

They both view school pretty grimly - as something to be ‘got through’. As bright children I thought they would be sailing, but instead they’re fed up sadly. Apart from getting this schooling government out - what can we as parents actually DO about it?

ChillysWaterBottle It was the most recent episode on Leading.

Schooling - that should have read ‘failing.’ The irony.

My attitude is probably worse than my daughter who is still in school (youngest). I’ve got four children, two are fully out of the education system, one is in her second year at college and was a y9 during Covid so missed much of that year and one is now a y10 who missed most of Y6 and then on and off in Y7, her first year at secondary.

The school system was getting worse prior to Covid but since it has been awful. School closed randomly on and off for the next year or so due to Covid increases. Masks in schools made mine hate going. The whole transgender focus. Disruptive classmates, substitute teachers. My daughter is good and wants to do well but I’m tempted to keep her home in bad weather or if she’s just a bit poorly because I’m the one who feels she could be learning more for her gcse s at home with some text books and YouTube. She still attends and comes home having a good moan about some kid messing about or her teacher not being there so they didn’t learn anything and it makes my frustration rise as she wants to do A levels and then go to uni for the path she wants to follow and I’m worried she will have to waste time playing catch up at college before being able to get to A levels.

That's a shame, sounds a bit like the worst of both worlds! I don't have classroom experience so was going off the fact that the foundation phase curriculum is marketed as play based.

I still think that the Welsh system seems to be less full/ tested/ etc and that we still have attendance problems.

Off topic, but do you think the new curriculum will help with what you've described?

I was recently in Australia and exactly the same conversations were being had in relation to covid and absenteeism.