To think the term School 'REFUSAL' should be banned?

[taratill]

I think it is a terrible term to use for a child who is unable to attend school and is an excuse for schools, LEA's the government to blame mental health problems / anxiety problems in school on the child.

I have first hand experience of this and had a child who was classed a school 'refuser' as a result of the fact that he had massive anxiety/ undiagnosed ASD and was unable to attend for a period of 6 months last year. Rather than give him support, in the first instance, when he started to get anxious and not want to go he was branded as naughty and defiant and quite ridiculously threatened with exclusion because he was scared to go into the class room. His anxiety wasn't addressed and he started to threaten to self harm and was eventually deemed until to go to school by mental health workers.

Happily now we have got to the root of the anxieties and have a good new school he has gone back but needs a number of interventions in the classroom/ school environment to cope. If he had had these and school had listened in the first place he may never have had to have time off, sigh!

I've read on a post today some quite judgemental comments about 'school refusal' and think the term itself is so damaging as the implication is that it is the child or the parents fault.

Just really winds me up, that's all.

squeegle there are which is why there is a pledge to put mental health nurses in school which might help.

The problem is that CAMHS is so underfunded that unless a child is suicidal they are either rejected or on lengthy waiting lists.

I agree. I got an email today about the white paper. I think it is a good idea to put more support in schools, but they really need to have the back up to the front line as well. I am going to write to my MP about my concerns, I guess that’s the only way to show our concern in a constructive way.

@MaisyPops I was referring to the below

'I never understand people posting in AIBU if thrn when people reasonably respond what they get is 'but you are wrong and i am right'. If ypu think you are totally reasonable then why bother asking.'

Surely you can see that a lot of people posting on Aibu are doing so for traffic, a rant and some understanding rather than a debate?

Ha my MP knows my name well Squeegle! I wrote to her about waiting times at CAMHs when DS couldn't go to school and I wrote to her yesterday again about a gap in Occ Health services for children under CAHMs in our area!

I am very sceptical about the support in school plan. As good as it sounds on the surface the proposal at the moment is for 25% of schools to have someone trained by 2020 and those will probably be the schools who are already supportive and trying their best anyway. I think it could easily end up as another pass the buck type situation.

"I agree. There may be many reasons (very valid & not - though more valid than not in my experience) but we have to start from a factual perspective that a child is refusing to attend school."

I repeat: we do not start from that perspective if an adult is unable to come to work. If an adult phones in sick with stress, do we register it as "work refusal" until we have seen the sick note? And if not, why not? It's a factual description, isn't it? They're refusing.

When the consultant rheumatologist came in to school to explain the effects of dd's longterm and very painful condition, the only question school management asked of her was "how will we know she is really in pain?" Otoh one of the senior staff who had had some time off with a broken arm was showered with sympathy. Why did noone ask her how they could know she was really in pain just because she had a diagnosis (so did dd) and just because she said so (so did dd). Why do we treat children and adults so differently?

taratill the problem with sensory on that scale is that it's invisible, so it literally relies on staff understanding, and instead, often you get disbelief. Yet it's so standard with ASD, and when adjustments are made, all is well. So why is it such a battle?! It's so disheartening. We aren't asking for the moon, or even any money spent - just understanding, and small, simple adjustments made.

maisyok but why then do so many parents of school refusals for anxiety reasons live in fear of Education Welfare Officers
That is to do with how the schools/LA handle and manage the situation (in my experience anyway).
My last few schools take/took zero action against parents when there were known mental health issues and fought with parents to get support.
Heartbreakingly I recall one case where home mentioned an attempted suicide (shared with us) and we couldn't get CAMHS help because they deemed it more of a cry for help than a proper attempt and because of so many cut backs they were having to brually prioritise. It was shocking and even the people from CAMHS were apologetic.

The system is a bloody nightmare at times. We see the whole spectrum of cases in schools.

However, that is separate to whether school refuser is a valid umbrella term, which I think it is.

You are mixing up two issues

YABU to think and think the term itself is so damaging as the implication is that it is the child or the parents fault

It's a simple and accurate term to describe any child that won't go to school for whatever reason and regardless of who's fault it it. If I hear the term school refuser I don't assume it's a 'naughty child' or that it's a child with mental health issues. It's not a term that means you are judged as a parent and it's not a term that put the name on a child. It's just a easy to understand term to describe kids that refuse to go to school. 🤷🏻‍♀️

YANBU to be disappointed in how your DCs old school handled your DSs problems.

perfect storm dc masked well until aged 7, when the wheels started to come off, so to speak.

Rooooooood
What you've said.
The system is great in some places and utterly dreadful in others. It is right to be annoyed at that.

The term school refusers is a separate issue entirely and one which describes a situation

The problem is that CAMHS is so underfunded that unless a child is suicidal they are either rejected or on lengthy waiting lists.

I know of two areas that automatically reject ASD kids with MH problems unless they are actively suicidal, visibly self-harming, or a threat to a non-family member. I can only hope the last part was something lost in translation, as it was a verbal explanation, but 75% of kids across the country are refused when referred at this point. It's more common than actually accessing provision.

I get so angry when I see Kate and William earnestly insisting that we mustn't be embarrassed, that we must go to the doctor, seek help, our children need it and the help is there... fuck off, you privileged idiots. They already turn away 3 in 4 people - what makes you encourage someone to seek help that IS NOT AVAILABLE? The positioning the issue as parents being clueless, instead of the services being run down so they are on their knees, makes me want to spit.

Funding cuts for all children are dire. Schools have so little money now, and teachers are spread so thin, and have such impossible targets to hit. I can see why they aren't able to meet the child's needs, a lot of the time. But I wish they'd acknowledge that reality instead of pretending the provision is fine, and the parents just making mountains from molehills and pandering.

Makes sense, Pengggwn. But still don't understand why "refusal" is a good term, particularly not for a child who has a diagnosis. Or why it would be a good term if we suspected somebody was preventing them; that would hardly be the child refusing either.

What that terminology does (certainly did for many years for dd) is create a psychological climate where the school feel "it's not really our fault, she is refusing, nothing to do with us". A climate where the school feels a child being unable to attend school due to extreme anxiety is somehow different, somehow more of the child's choice, than if an adult member of staff has a breakdown and is unable to come in.

As dd's HT once so eloquently put it, " of course we accept that corydd is ill but you can't expect us to be happy about it " He did not say that to the staff member with the broken arm.

If a child is refusing school, they are missing out on their right to education and there is (unfortunately) always going to be concern that someone is preventing them - through poor parenting or poor provision at school - from accessing their education. Educators have a legal duty to record things in a certain way, inform certain agencies etc. They can't just lend a sympathetic ear.

I find that hard to believe, given that the Inclusion Team in our area (old truancy people) came out to see us, met our son, looked at what we were doing, and then told us in their view we'd done the right thing removing him. They also wrote a letter stating that we were providing a truly excellent education, and meeting his needs in every way,. I didn't ask for such a letter, and had not expected it.

These were the same people we'd been threatened with by the Head, when DS was developing school phobia. Ironically, they totally understood ASD and the problems it brings for the child in mainstream, because they deal with so many cases of refusal, and withdrawal. They also offered some excellent off the record advice on several aspects which was valuable.

I'd always assumed they would be aggressively focused on school attendance/enrolment. They couldn't have been less so. They were as child-focused as anyone could ask, and as soon as they were sure we were genuinely concerned for DS, they were a fount of useful info and solid reassurance. Talk about unfair reputations!

I am a school counselor. We would never use the term "school refuser" to refer to a student who has a GP's note or a letter from a specialist HCP staying that they are too unwell to attend. We would classify them as being off school on medical grounds, regardless of whether the difficulties are around their physical or mental health.

Unfortunately, we do need written confirmation though. We can't just take parents word for it that a child is not fit to attend school long term. We have had a case of fabricated illness (what they used to call Munchausen's by proxy) as well as numerous cases where parents have claimed that their child is too anxious to come to school but they were actually working for the family business or out burgling houses or caring for an adult family member or caring for younger children whilst parents work etc etc. Non attendance is a big red flag for lots of issues so that's why we need evidence- it's to safeguard the children involved.

I do understand your frustration though OP as it's not easy to obtain this evidence because it takes so long to get specialist support and despite a lot of promises from the Government, provision is still very much a postcode lottery.

I am sorry your family has been through such a difficult time

cory it's interesting; we do have a default societal expectation that children will always be trying it on. We don't have that for adults. Yet adults seem to me just as likely to do so, if not more so. A child with a diagnosis shouldn't be questioned on it if they feel pain/acute stress, when there should be an alternative plan/pathway so they can access the education anyway - that's what reasonable adjustments means and it's a duty under the Equalities Act, not a kind thing schools deign to offer when they feel like it. But you'd rarely know that, would you.

the responses are very interesting. The problem is much more than the label, it is the increased pressures on children to achieve results (primary SATS) , the increased pressure on schools to achieve high attendance and the reduction in support services altogether which cause the problem.

In response to Rood and Maisy I get that this is a descriptive term and that it is up to schools to look beyond it but surely requiring them to differentiate the term would stop them from being lazy and actually help parents get the support they very often need?

Unfortunately, we do need written confirmation though. We can't just take parents word for it that a child is not fit to attend school long term. We have had a case of fabricated illness (what they used to call Munchausen's by proxy) as well as numerous cases where parents have claimed that their child is too anxious to come to school but they were actually working for the family business or out burgling houses or caring for an adult family member or caring for younger children whilst parents work etc etc. Non attendance is a big red flag for lots of issues so that's why we need evidence- it's to safeguard the children involved.

I accept all that. But can I ask why, when you have evidence from 3 specialist paeds, one of whom is on the NICE clinical guidelines panel, and they all insist an ed psych is needed, which you, the school, are blocking, and the child is formally diagnosed with ASD, SPD, and anxiety... how the hell is it right to threaten the Inclusion Team when the parent is asking for an all agencies meeting (also refused) to work out a way forward? And my son achieved the top possible scores in KS1 SATS so his attendance record hardly seemed to be damaging his learning, did it?

I am NOT doubting how it works in your school, or how it's supposed to work. I've had amazing support from the NHS, from the Advisory Teaching Service, from a local ed psych, and from individual teachers. But the head's approach was such that in two (two!) school placements, we were advised by the paed to involve solicitors to force the right provision, or to move him. There was no third option.

I want my child in school. There are all sorts of things schools offer that home ed can't. But he was clinically diagnosed with anxiety, and there was talk of medication at 7 and 8 to address that. SSRIs, which can't be tested on kids for obvious reasons. Psychoactive drugs on a developing brain with no long term studies on outcomes. And now, at home after a year, he no longer has mental health problems other than mild OCD. How is that good practice? How? And yet it is common. I've met too many parents with ASD kids to doubt that. The paed said it was the norm - she can name more schools who don't care properly for ASD kids, than those who do.

It just is not good enough. We are currently spending money we really don't have to home ed to the right level. We pay for private medical support no longer available on the NHS. And we will borrow to send him privately to secondary, because what choice is there? And that's not right not because we resent doing that - we now rent, as I can't work, when we used to own - but because not all families with ASD kids can even afford to do it at all, even by their fingernails as we are. So many kids are lost to this. It's not right. And the fix is relatively simple, is the worst part.

And I think it's a given that the school will see school refusal as beyond their control
Agree.
They cannot control mental health issues
They cannot control a child refusing 'just because'
They cannot control a parent allowing their child to stay off because it's easier than having an argument over it
They cannot control whether home is neglecting their child
They cannot control whether there are safeguarding issues
They cannot control a child playing soke odd game because it allows them to ensure 2 split up parents lavish attention on them (alongaide.other quite manipulative behaviours)
Schools cannot control when a parent invents mysterious illnesses and state refusal to attend but really it's because home want the child at home for company/to look after younger siblings
(I've seen all of those happen)

Schools simply cannot control that. When recording attendace they have to go for what it is which is school refusal.

They can decide what steps to take from identifying school refusal.They can explore in school support and they can facilitate multi agency support.
But schools cannot control factors linked to school refusal and it is silly to suggest schools can or should be able to do that.

Ok Penggwn I can see that but that shouldn't be an excuse not to ask questions but make their own assumptions that the child is being defiant by not attending.