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.

But that is what I mean: they assessed the situation. They weren't blaming you in any way.

That was the Inclusion Team. The school absolutely blamed me. Or rather, the head did.

I should say, though, that I had no issue with being inspected. I completely understand the need, and don't really understand why so many home edders are opposed. I realise it could be a wonderful front for abuse, and neglect. I just wish home ed were unnecessary.

and that is what several of us on here with autistic and/ or anxious kids are saying is happening which is why it is a problem.

I agree with OP, because it isn't obvious what the words mean. Not least because some parents need the term to mean something specific.

DS refused to go to school some days. Nothing to do with anxiety. What was he, Truant? Degenerate? "School Refuser" was reserved for people with other problems. But It took me a while to figure that out.

"The big issue is there is little support for parents whose kids are not at school WHATEVER THE REASON."

I agree with that, too. It still doesn't help to insist that generic sounding words must only describe something happening for very narrow set of reasons and leave the rest of us with fewer words to describe what we're dealing with.

Cross posted with this
it would put school leaders in the position of making judgements they really aren't qualified to make. It isn't up to a school to determine why a child is refusing school, is it?
It's not our job to determine WHY a child is refusing school or to investigate further.

We are teachers & allied support staff, not therapists, counsellors, social workers etc (although there is an increasing overlap whicb most teachers are not happy with because we are very aware that we are not qualified professionals in thoae areas and no 3 hour cpd presentation on mental health comes close to children accessing Camhs)

If they are refusing to go to school its totally accurate. Why not call things as they are?

It's not totally accurate, it's not calling things as they are... look at the Wikipedia definitions. Truants & School refusers both refuse to go to school, but for very different reasons that aren't obvious in the name "School Refusal".

But for some children - including some I have taught - no adjustments will ever be possible to make it better for a student to be in school.

No, I agree. DS is one. His tutor is a SENDCO who took early retirement on health grounds, and is wonderful with him. Her assessment is that he has complex needs, and a lot of them are only visible in one to one teaching. He's demand avoidant, too, and bright enough that when taught in a class of 30 he can coast at this age, and at times self-sabotage, without that being noticed.

But he also needs the socialisation. SO many ASD kids aren't antisocial, just scarred from years of rejection. And he had some amazing, dedicated care and help with that in KS1 from teaching staff who deserve, were there justice in this life, CEO pay levels. I never had a problem with classroom staff, who were universally supportive.

Money is the problem. For CAHMS, but also in schools, because NAS consultancy should be standard, and funded, so a school could be less inherently stressful. More specialist TAs for kids with these and allied issues as well. A Scandinavian level of funding, essentially.

I also think there should be a dedicated PA to manage teaching admin, because specialist, trained professionals doing that amount of admin after hours is IMO an insane waste of skill, expertise and energy. No wonder so many teachers leave the profession.

Truants & School refusers both refuse to go to school, but for very different reasons that aren't obvious in the name "School Refusal

You just agreed with me. They are refusing school, they are school refusers.
The reasons are complex and individual and couldn't possibly all be covered in any definition. So as an umbrella term, school refusal is accurate and useful.

Why on earth would you expect every childs reason for school refusal to be explicit in a term used to cover all reasons?

You can't compare kids not going to school with adults not going to work. If I don't go to work, whatever the reason, I don't get paid. If kids don't go to school, parents don't automatically get money taken away from them.

It is more comparable with adults refusing to go to a college course. There are lots of reasons adults may refuse to go to a course, some justified and some not.

And I think it is a disgrace that the children with the highest needs, often end up effectively getting taught by the least qualified staff.

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 can't explain or justify decisions made by professionals I have never met, about a situation I have no knowledge of simply because I also work in a school. My post was purely clarifying why, in the school i work in, in some cases the term school refusal might be used.

It sounds like a very frustrating situation.

No its not penggwn I am not suggesting that. TAs should only be used though for facilitating children learning from the teacher. For example a disabled child who needs help going to the toilet, who can't hear everything being said, that kind of thing. If a child actually needs taught, they should be taught by a teacher in a very small group, not by a TA.

I have to submit education plans to my home school education service.

"If I don't go to work, whatever the reason, I don't get paid."

Not even statutory sick pay?

"But schools cannot control factors linked to school refusal and it is silly to suggest schools can or should be able to do that."

Respectfully, these are some of the factors my daughter's school could have controlled:

listened to her when she said she was in too much pain to cope- avoiding fears that being at school meant not being able to access help

not spoken to other staff members in her hearing about how they did not believe her issues were real- again fears about not being able to access help

implemented changes suggested by consultant as long as they did not cost extra money (such as allowing her to use disabled toilet)

not spoken in her hearing (or mine, for that matter) about how difficult it was for them to have a disabled pupil in the school

not tried to push their own opinions about her medical condition when this had already been evaluated by GP/rheumatology consultant/rheumatology paediatrician/specialist clinic and the paperwork was on their desk

not putting her down as absent without leave when she was in hospital (and school were given relevant paperwork)

taken the chance to ask real questions (not just, "how do we know she isn't lying?") when the consultant actually took time to visit the school

not left her to work alone in a classroom for a whole semester of maths because making her set available to her would have involved letting two classes switch classrooms so hers were downstairs, or making her work in a lower set

told casual staff that she was disabled and hence should not be forced to do various PE exercises

If I had to work in a workplace where they refused to recognise my medical condition, I'd be bloody terrified. Sadly, so was dd. She has found the adult world of work and HE a LOT easier to deal with.

Sorry, I have just realised that SSP is only paid for day four of illness onwards, so an employee may not get paid if they are off for three days or less.

But... I think you absolutely can compare "school refusal" with adults going to work. Both are pretty much compulsory, whereas an adult on a college course can just leave if they want to with minimal consequences (in terms of whether the college 'cares' whether the adult attends or not).

Curry, you don't get this.

School Refusal by definition = refuses school for anxiety/emotional reasons. That is the forced definition of the phrase.

I'd be fine if "school refusal" covered truants, but by definition it doesn't. The phrase was coined to describe kids who aren't truants but also refuse to attend school.

It's like... I dunno. "Meltdown." years ago on MN a lot of parents insisted that this term only described the sort of extreme tantrum their kids could have (kids with some specific SN). No one else was allowed to use it. Except they never actually got their definition of Meltdown in the dictionary - but school refusal is in the dictionary as I describe it above. It's not a generic term.

Or "tax avoidance" vs. "tax evasion." Who the F can keep track of the difference? But in law there is one, even though the words don't make any sense to mean the legal definitions.

Or pansexual vs. bisexual, vegan vs. plant-based diet, etc. Somebody has grabbed a word & defined it to mean something not obvious about it, yet insisting that's the only exclusive and valid definition.

Absolutely agree that schools can and should take into account factors that they can control.

If a child is too scared to go to school because it is too noisy on the dinner hall = provide a separate area for the child to eat

Just one very simple reason why a child might not go to school and a very simple solution.

If a child, who was relaxed and happy at school, refused to go home every afternoon, clung to their teachers, sobbed and shaked with distress, then where do you think the investigations would be focused? Home or school?

Yes nothing for first few days, then only statutory sick pay which is only to stop you starving to death. Which is why most people in my workplace go in if they are ill.