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.

Agree. While it’s not the only aspect, I’ve heard this so much and not just from children who are academic. Learners who need time to reflect and some ND learners found online lessons, where they could take it more slowly and listen again, actually did better during covid.

I understand why grammars and secondary moderns were changed to comprehensives, but I do wonder whether it actually restricted options for everybody in terms of not every school being able to offer everything two schools could.

Would you be better having "core" school mornings where everybody does maths/english/PE/citizenship/critical thinking/life skills and then in afternoon you either do other subjects or more vocational courses?

And your proportion of academic to vocational afternoons could vary according to the pupil as you got older (for say Y7 and 8 it would have to be more directed, so nobody misses out on trying languages or music etc).

Timetabling would be an absolute nightmare though! And locations. Because ideally your afternoons would be mixed with other schools to give sensible class sizes.

But it might make schools a bit less hectic, and hopefully have students doing things they do well in and enjoy.

Probably not realistic, but maybe a more modern approach?

Who said anything about writing them off? We can’t afford to write off 2 million children. Things cost money. We need them to work and pay taxes. But making out all of them will fall into well paid, wfh jobs with few requirements is an absolute fantasy. They need to increase their resilience somehow otherwise our economy will be in big trouble in 15 years. We already have an ageing population, huge national debt and high taxes as well as 25% of working age people not in work.

So how will keeping them in a school environment which is harming their mental health and preventing them from achieving academic success, because they are so poorly they can't focus on their work going to help them get a job when they leave school @Naptrappedmummy ? ( that is of course assuming the suicidal ones actually survive to the end of their schooling. )

Because they’ll develop resilience. How else do you think people develop resilience if not by pushing through tough times?

'Well paid' is a new addition here.

But actually, the fact that so many jobs increasingly don't pay enough to be attractive to younger people, whether they can cope with school or not, is a substantial part of the problem. As you point out, we have an ageing population, and the 25% of people not in work are evidently not being offered anything that would act as sufficient incentive.

And you think everyone who doesn’t feel they have a good enough job offer should simply go on benefits? And that’s a sustainable economic model?

Only they don't. For many they break.

I forced my eldest in way longer than I should have because I held your kind of belief system. It nearly killed him. It took him 4 years to regain the mental health to leave our house. He was 10 at the time.

Since then he has been able to build resilience at home and through therapy and medication and got GCSEs and reentered formal education post 16. He has a place at a top university away from home.

If I hadn't have withdrawn him eventually from school when he did he would be dead.

I withdrew my daughter earlier in the process because I saw the harm that forcing my eldest in did. She has recovered quicker and has amazing personal strength and resilience built away from the school environment. She competes at county and regional level in her sport. She wants to be a sports psychologist if she doesn't make it professionally in her sport. If I'd have kept her in school she would have been damaged, had the stuffing knocked out of her and would not have the energy after school to play her sport at all.

You have already stated that you have no professional knowledge, you are not a teacher, you are not an autism expert, you are not the parent of a young person who has additional needs or has been traumatised by school yet you persist with your falsehoods.

The scenario that seems to be the norm here is parents removing children of primary age from school because the child doesn’t LOVE it, or the teacher tells them off. There are very regular posts about it on a local fb page and judging by the spelling of the parents, I don’t fancy the child’s home schooling chances. I would hazard a guess very few of them are receiving adequate education at home.

What a bizarre response. Why do you keep making things up?

The better idea would be to try and make our economic model more sustainable. Work has to pay and be sufficiently attractive generally or people won't do it. Those jobs that aren't attractive are, in an ageing society, going to have to be made attractive enough to recruit sufficient workers or we're going to have to manage without them.

Well what’s the alternative if they’re not in work? Benefits or… what?

As for the rest of your post, well yes it would be nice if we were all very well paid. But surely you understand why that isn’t possible?!

Depends which group of people you're talking about. Some people retire early, might be supported by a partner or family member. For those in school now, if the prospect of working isn't sufficiently attractive to them then the ones who can opt out are more likely to. There's also the problem of incentivising them to train for things we need them to train to do. Again, this has to look sufficiently attractive for them to bother.

And there are other ways to achieve changes to the current system such as building sufficient housing and in particular more social housing. If we don't do that, we're only going to have ourselves to blame when we reap the consequences of rendering stability inaccessible to increasingly high percentages of the younger generations.

For those in school now, if the prospect of working isn't sufficiently attractive to them then the ones who can opt out are more likely to. There's also the problem of incentivising them to train for things we need them to train to do. Again, this has to look sufficiently attractive for them to bother.

Why should they get to ‘opt out’ and be paid for by other people?

@48wheaties I took my 12 year old out in June.. it was the best thing for us both. There are so many qualification options, not just GCSE & if u want GCSES they still take them & can choose from a wider range of subjects like Dance, astronomy etc! College courses available from age 14 in practical subjects.. much more useful.. The stress relief was massive for both of us. I didn’t realise how stressful school is for kids & parents until we left lol! His personality has come back & he communicates to me again & even gets up at 6am lol 😂 Getting him up for School was a struggle for years. There are so many home education groups on Facebook etc & u can homeschool on times & days u choose… My son attends a sports group at the local Uni just for home ed kids & there are loads of weekly activities in person & online..
There is some judgement from others to deal with re home education but remember but for us it has been worth it!
Good Luck..x

Well, even if there were no benefits system some of them would have the choice not to buy into the working world regardless. Or only partially. If eg parents are willing to subsidise adult children, the feelings of other unrelated individuals are immaterial.

Ultimately, there isn't any getting round that work needs to offer sufficient incentives. The economic and housing systems we currently have are not facilitating that, and it's getting worse. Theories about resilience aren't going to address the problem.

How many parents can subsidise adult children and would be happy to do so, do you think? And if they were, why would the adult child feel any incentive to work at all?

Suicide victims don't earn money.

People need decent mental health to be able to work and study.

People carried on working in the aftermath of WW2.

More than zero, which is a problem given that as you correctly point out, we have an ageing population and a lack of workers. Doesn't have to look like not working at all either, it could be someone who'd be training for a role we need with a view to a career and independence if they viewed it as worthwhile but instead works part time and remains in the parental home. Though I agree, in some cases a child might not feel any incentive to engage with the workplace at all. This problem has already been raised in the thread with the points about influencers.

But ultimately, if you think it's important that DC who currently struggle with some aspects of school get 'well paid' roles, you need to feel the same about those who are attending fine. It's as relevant for one group as it is for the other. That is why the incentives need to be better and systemic issues addressed, or we'll all suffer for it. Theories about people having to push through tough times when clearly they actually don't have to, will not change anything.

And I think it's the same with adults working from home. I think it's hard to go back and make time and space for the "peripheral" unpleasant aspects of school and work, like gossip, bullying, applying pressure, asking favours etc.

Why would I, or any sensible person, choose to tolerate gossip and bullying when I could work without that abuse in an environment that I control?

Are you seriously suggesting that the entire population had PTSD or depression or some other mental illness after WW2? Newsflash: they didn't. Most of them, including DGF who served in North Africa and the Mediterranean, were fine. What did give DGF depression was having a stroke and losing the use of one side of his body.

There isn’t the money for this root and branch approach that you want. We would have to find an ENORMOUS sum of money to revolutionise education, housing etc to start with. And that money simply isn’t there. Our national debt is enormous, we are no longer a wealthy country.

The only option for societal improvements and for public services and education to be transformed is if everyone who can work, does work. Increasing our productivity and tax revenue, which at the moment is dwindling due to so many people being out of work for fairly minor reasons. Only once we start the machine again can we raise the capital to transform our society and services. It’s a catch 22 because those refusing to work will say they need expensive support to do so, and the money just isn’t there for that.

In essence we can’t afford for people to be picky about work and simply claim if they don’t fancy what they’re offered. They’re their own worst enemy as they will sink the ship they’re relying on.

Exactly. So why is a much less traumatising event like the covid pandemic held up as a mental health destroyer and a reason for people to opt out of society?

The thing is, nobody has any obligation to pay any attention to your theorising. It doesn't matter that you think you have a convincing argument as to why we can't build more social housing. Even if you were right it wouldn't matter, and your affordability argument totally fails to account for the savings we'd make in housing benefit/UC housing allowances.

It is quite clear that the current system is not doing what we need it to. If all you've got is sorry kids, no stability for increasingly high numbers of you but you're going to have to keep buying in anyway because it'll be difficult for us if you don't, there'll be no improvement. People vote with their feet.

Even if you were right it wouldn't matter, and your affordability argument totally fails to account for the savings we'd make in housing benefit/UC housing allowances.

We would only make those savings AFTER the improvements. The improvements we have no money for. The money has to come first - and we won’t have any until the workforce actually works. It’s very simple.