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

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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.

Funny you should say this. It is a standing joke at my school that the children we currently have will be the ones wiping our arses in care homes in the future. I said I would be booking my one way ticket to a Swiss clinic to be euthanised before I let that happen.

Well I am going out on a limb here, and no doubt this will be unpopular. I don’t think school is awful. It might be boring and repetitive and you have to follow lots of rules and learn lots of dull facts, but really don’t understand all the hand-wringing and stressing.

Do people really think school was that much better for our generation? I had the same issues that my kids have.
Some good teachers, some bad teachers. Some subjects I was good at, some subjects I really struggled with. Some nice kids, some horrible kids. School was often dull, exams were stressful, but I don’t remember NOT going to school as ever being an option. Maybe that’s the difference.

I think there have been plenty of improvements in education - for example, the way maths is taught (it was one of the subjects I struggled with, I think how my kids have been taught maths is much better).
Phonics teaching in primary which really helps some students with reading.
A much wider range of subjects and sports for girls.
A much better understanding of how SEN kids learn and adapted teaching.
Specific EAL staff for students who arrive without being able to speak English.
Better quality nutrition in school meals and food vouchers in school holidays.

I could go on….

Yes of course there are negatives too (completely agree about the unnecessary grammar in primary, bloody fronted adverbials!) but I really don’t think school is as bad as people on here are making out.

And if we go back another generation - my father’s experience of school was bloody awful, he had the Victorian-style teaching with caning etc. But he knew that school was the only way to getting a job.

My opinion is that there is too much emphasis (from both parents and school) on academic success, when not everyone is capable of it.

I also think we have centred children so much in our lives that we try and remove any obstacles to their happiness - then they find any challenges too difficult.

You seem to have ignored the kids with SEND who desperately want to go to school. Their parents desperately want them to go to school.

But school is too overwhelming for them so they don’t go.

My child seriously self harmed when we tried to push her back into school.

To reiterate what @ArseInTheCoOpWindow just said.

You have ignored send children who form the vast majority of children who ware not in school.

Parents are desperate for their children to be educated, value education highly. The children want to be educated in a way that does not harm them and allows them to learn.

I have 2 school refusers (undiagnosed sen), pre-covid, my eldest has reintegrated to mainstream 6th form & is going to university next year and my youngest will do GCSEs next year and hopes to go to college.

Nothing to do with any form of disordered parenting or lack of educational aspiration. I was accused of both of those things by people too ignorant to actually understand the reasons my kids weren't forced into unsuitable schools.

Do people really think school was that much better for our generation? I had the same issues that my kids have. Some good teachers, some bad teachers. Some subjects I was good at, some subjects I really struggled with. Some nice kids, some horrible kids. School was often dull, exams were stressful, but I don’t remember NOT going to school as ever being an option. Maybe that’s the difference.

This. Where on earth has the idea come from that school for previous generations was a utopia? My daughter’s primary school is far better run than my own was in the 80s/early 90s - more engaged staff, better safeguarding, more innovative lessons, plenty of extracurricular activities (we had virtually none), and more support for kids with SEN. There clearly are issues today around kids’ mental health and poor attendance but I don’t think it can all be put down to the school environment itself.

Many schools are no longer fit for purpose - government policies, under investment, lack of investment in the teaching profession, Ofsted, lack of Sen funding, too much emphasis on exam results .... The list is a long and depressing one.

@Lorralorr - I didn't add my comment about working parents to antagonise, I am a full time working parent myself. But I do work with children who struggle with their parents juggling many commitments. This is not a dig at working families and many children cope fine, but the reality is some children do struggle with it.

Did you have testing in years 2 and year 6?

Did that testing discriminate against you if you were dyslexic or had other sensory processing issues or sen issues?

I thrived in school in the 80's and 90's, there was a lot less pressure of testing in primary schools. There were smaller class sizes for a start and the teachers didn't have the external pressures they do now, Ofsted for example wasn't introduced until the early 1990s. Nor were SATS. So my primary education was free from teachers frazzled from those constraints. I'm glad your daughter is thriving but it won't be down to an improved school environment or better teacher mental health.

Really interesting thread - our primary school is currently asking school governors to look at ideas to improve attendance.
In our case the low attendance is a not across the whole school but a small % of families who have a whole plateful of issues to deal with and no support available. We are looking at taxibus services, breakfast clubs, providing uniform on arrival etc... so parents just have to get the kids out bed and out of the door.

The government may think they are saving money by not spending social care and cutting benefits. But in reality the school is picking up the resulting cost and it is coming out of budget meant for teaching. It feels like we are stuck in a downward spiral.

I found that refusing to entertain any drama, just staying calm and being persistent worked.
So yes I sympathise that you feel a bit rubbish but you are going to school because I'm your mum and know what's best for you.
And yes I know you are upset but it's school time so get up now or you will be in trouble.
Acknowledge the feeling without lending weight to it, reacting to it or let it derail you. It may be that your anxiety about her state is feeding into it as we. So stay calm, uninterested, unresponsive even. You can do all that while still showing you're sympathetic.

I was waiting for someone to mention screens.
It is a huge issue.

The very brightest and most brilliant minds that the games industry can find are employed to make games as addictive as possible - because that is how they sell more. The addiction from a young age actually re-wires young brain. It messes up their 'reward' centres, so that they simply cannot cope with boredom.

Schools have been ultra-strict and over-academic for ever. But children have lost the ability to cope with boredom.

There is also now a generation of young children whose parents have had smart phones and social media since the children were born. What does it do to the child's development when the parent is constantly either on the phone, or waiting to go back on it for their fix?

Yes the other factors, covid, funding, NHS lists, poverty, etc, are important, but the addictive screens are a huge factor which is so often overlooked.

Lockdowns during Covid. So many children have come out of it with social anxiety

Well done you. But did your 10 year old try to throw themselves out of bedroom windows, try to hurl themselves out of moving cars or run home when they did get to school?

Thought not.

See I just don’t understand what is fuelling such an uptick in this kind of extreme behaviour (sympathies, it must be horrific). I know a core of posters are reluctant to admit society has changed in any form over the years at all, but honestly there was no EBSA etc when I was at secondary in the early 2000s. I find it a bit gaslighty when people try to convince me there was, because there wasn’t. There was ‘truanting’ - kids taking their chances at bunking off one or two days a year to go to McDonalds or smoke spliffs in the park, but nobody so desperate to stay out of school that they did this kind of thing. It just seems so extreme all of a sudden, like teens are willing to risk serious physical injury or self harm to avoid something they find emotionally challenging. I just don’t get it.

I don’t work in education but I think there are two main reasons for poor attendance. Firstly, some children are living with chronic conditions, either physically or mentally. The mental health of some children took a nose dive during Covid and it will take longer than five minutes to fix. Secondly, some parents genuinely thinking it doesn’t matter as much now and have a more relaxed attitude because children missed months of school anyway due to Covid. So they let them have their birthday off, the last day of term etc etc because it’s only one day. But those days add up. In our house, the same importance is placed on school attendance as it always was.

Did you have testing in years 2 and year 6?

We did have year 6 SATS as I recall but not year 2. Don’t recall the year 6 ones being a big deal. DD barely noticed she was doing her year 2 SATS so it definitely wasn’t a source of stress for her, but I know this varies from school to school.

In terms of discrimination against kids with SEN, dyslexia or sensory proceeding issues, schools manage these vastly better now in my view than 30-40 years ago. There were kids at my primary who clearly had undiagnosed SEN but were left to flounder and were often bullied. One of my siblings had a mental health issue that absolutely would have been picked up by school now, but in the early 90s was written off as eccentricity. I don’t doubt that things are still tough for kids with SEN (and specialist provision is massively lacking thanks to previous governments’ push for inclusion at any cost) but things absolutely were not better in the past.

I know this was a bit of a controversial post.
But seriously - there are some families where you know that if you phone home to check on the pupil, it’s quite obvious you’ve just woken the parent up. And the pupil will tell you that nobody wakes them up at home, or encourages them to get to school on time. However, I do think this is a minority.

There was less pressure in primary school (no SATS & ofsted) & more sen provision/ special schools when I was at primary school.

Classroom sizes were likely smaller too.

My example was pre-covid, he was 10 in 2016.

He is now 17, in year 13 at mainstream 6th form doing very well 100% attendance and working towards 3 A*s and had an interview for Oxford University. He will always be autistic (not diagnosed at the time) and have anxiety issues which are now medicated but forcing him to school at that time would have killed him, and I am being very literal when I say that. He didn't go to school at all from February of year 7 to the start of year 12.

I just think people are over simplistic when they say it's down to poor parenting or if we were just a bit calmer or firmer then they would be in school.

There were kids at my primary who clearly had undiagnosed SEN but were left to flounder and were often bullied

That's precisely the experience my two children had at primary school recently.

Sad that nothing has changed.

Well done you.

My Dd seriously self harmed when we tried to push her to school. That was fun in A and E at 3.00 am.

Thats what comes of ‘not lending weight’ to a feeling. Or refusing to ‘entertain a drama’

If it was that bloody easy don’t you think we would have done that? 😡

We certainly had SATS and OFSTED when I was at primary in 2000. I remember my teacher taking us outside to sit on a bench and tell us our results. I also remember the teachers being observed by OFSTED and being told to be on our best behaviour

Our classroom was 25 children, DD’s is currently 26.

As far as SEN provision went neurodivergence was not understood and I can think of 2 children in my class who definitely would be diagnosed now with ADHD (the ‘naughty boys’).

However, even the ‘naughty’ behaviour back then was nowhere near as extreme as we see now. There was giggling and boisterous play but no smashing classrooms up, chair throwing or attacking staff. This simply did not happen, it would’ve been so unusual I would’ve remembered it.

My same age peers report in the same way.

My child didn't smash classroooms up.

You are a bit younger than me so my experience of schools is different to your but I suspect children with serious behavioural problems weren't in your schools because specialists schools existed. They only started to be shut down about the time you were in school.

Inclusion comes at a cost. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/jul/30/schools.uk

Gosh where do you live with class sizes of 26? They are 34 plus in primary schools around here!

The curriculum changes made by Gove were designed to differentiate the top tier of performance. More content, so faster curriculum, harder exams. The ‘A’ grade now splits into 7,8,9. Schools focus on the children that are projected to achieve this. When was it decided that anything less than an ‘A’ was not good enough?!

Coupled with an underfunded system, recruitment issues and increased SEND needs. Not to mention covid, quite often those who fall behind, stay behind. There’s also no time for much fun.

To help, so many parents pay for private tutors now. How can a school claim great results & outstanding status if 50+ % of the children have outside tutoring? It’s crazy.

Digital/ online devices with minimal parental controls are popular and many children admit they are using these throughout the night without sleeping. It becomes a habit and school is difficult when you've not slept. Staying off is easier.I'm not saying this is the main reason but i think we might be surprised how common the habit of being online/ phone whatever all night is for sone school age children.