To think there have to be some clearer reasons for the rise in school attendance problems?

[FloorWipes]

Inspired by this article https://unherd.com/2024/02/the-tragedy-of-britains-school-refusers/

How specifically has the pandemic affected things? Why is the environment so inhospitable to the neurodivergent?

I sit here now with DS,still not in school, been trying since 6.30am...

Same here. It nearly broke us as a family. I’ve never know anything like it.

One positive thing here is that this issue is now finally being talked about. By parents, by teachers, even in the media. I saw this situation when I removed myself and my dc from school five years ago and it has been simmering for a long time. Covid just accelerated things.

That's annoying. Apologies for rubbish formatting. Tried to edit and it didn't correct.

I have also been through EBSA with my child. It was the most relentless stressful and depressing period of my life. My child, now a young adult, has never fully recovered from their burnout.

It truly breaks my heart that so many of our children and youngsters are so broken by the education system.

Why are parents not marching on the streets! Probably because they are exhausted from the war they fight against such a toxic system 😢

sending love and solidarity to those parents going through this.

I think the situation would be inproved if schools actually reflected on themselves and their behaviour rather than blaming outwardly.

They act like the agressor in an abusive relationship. They often don't realise its their behaviour causing pupils and parents not to engage with them and refuse to reflect on what they can do to help. Schools have become ultra strict, dehumanising and in some cases cruel to pupils. Reading how some schools treat children, I too would be reluctant to send my child every day to suffer what they inflict on them! They seem to forget that children are people too!

I think we honestly put too much emphasis on sitting in school 5 days a week. It confuses me that schools and the goverment have no issue with parents pulling kids out to home educate them, where they then have little input or awareness of childrens progress. But ask for a flexischooling arrangement or a bit of humanity to attend a wedding/funeral/family event and you're treated like a criminal. Good workplaces have realised to engage employees you need to be flexible, offer more, yet schools haven't twigged yet. If you want people to engage with school, engage in ways that work for them. Flexischooling should be a legal right. Allow pupils and parents some autonomy in how they are educated. Stop making schools like military zones.

Schools and the goverment need to stop blaming covid. There's more to it.

Agree with those saying conditions in schools are horrendous - my DC tell me the most awful stories about the way kids behave now, and largely the teachers are powerless to do anything about it. So they get stricter and more punitive and for NT kids like mine that’s just depressing and tedious, for an ND kid it’s a whole other story.

i really don’t know what the answer is - the crisis in teacher recruitment is desperate and I agree with the PP who mentioned those awful DofE adverts - people who fall for that shit and think that teaching is like something out of Dead Poets’ Society don’t last long 😢

There is some research out there about school refusal

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10071931/

https://utdanningsforskning.no/contentassets/fea98fafada94781b1946096acae60f7/1-s2.0-s1077722918300427-main.pdf

Theres more out there to look at.

Very sorry for everyone going through this.

I often think research lags behind practitioner exoerience in these areas.

It would need to be UK based to be fully pertinent anyway

We were already in a MH crisis that began picking up around 2017. Camhs referrals for anxiety skyrocketed between '17 and '19, then again post covid. Gove curriculum is fundamental in my opinion.

@Antsinmypantsneedtodance how would flexi schooling work in reality for every child? I agree with the principle for those struggling but for the entire school it would be unworkable. My younger DS is in Y10, sees school as an interruption to his social life but doesn’t mind going, but if you offered him the chance to pick and choose when he went I guarantee you he wouldn’t go at all! How would that work? Not trying to be difficult - genuinely interested as I totally agree our schools don’t work anymore but without massive investment in staff and resources I don’t know how an alternative would either 🙁.

@DrRuthGalloway totally agree. Covid is part of a much bigger more complex problem sadly.

Because the education system is no longer fit for purpose, and if you spent a few days as a fly on the wall of many schools you'd have the answer to your question.

@DrRuthGalloway is right.

The ridiculous and constantly changing hoops that Ofsted insists upon have developed an anxious and stressed workforce. Inevitably that translates to a results focused regime and nurturing environments fall by the wayside.

That, coupled with everything previous posters have mentioned, has created a perfect storm.

I don't think there is any one answer. It's a combination of a multitude of issues coming together, most of which come down to the decimation of public services which, it turns out, actually do benefit society as a whole when they are working properly. My, not exhaustive, list includes...

1. Health: long covid will be having an impact. Also, I don't know what other people are finding, but in my experience with my children and work colleagues people just seem to be getting ill a lot more post covid. Of course you can't see a doctor very easily now so probably some illnesses that would have been quickly treated are now being left to rumble on. Also, long term health conditions that are not being properly treated due to waiting lists.

1. Mental health: I work in a secondary school and the number of children really struggling with anxiety is horrifying. Getting help seems to be a bit of a lottery but the situation has to be pretty dire to get any.

1. Behaviour: behaviour in schools is a huge issue. The parents don't care/blame the school/are trying their best but there's little support. The kids are undiagnosed ND (waiting lists, gatekeeping)/struggling with mental health/feral.

1. Underfunded schools: schools are pulling off miracles with insufficient funding but even that isn't enough any more. Teachers are leaving in droves and it's become very difficult to recruit new ones. Many lessons are being covered by supply. The children run wild in those lessons and do no work. It becomes an extremely unpleasant environment for children (apart from the few causing chaos) and staff.

1. Underfunded social services: anyone who works with children will tell you that many children are neglected but they get left with their families until the situation is catastrophic. It does so much damage.

1. COL: stressed parents make the best decisions they can. Sometimes that means going to work to keep the roof over their heads and food on the table rather than spending time getting reluctant teens to school.

1. Covid: everything changed after covid.

Unmet need. It's impossible and soul destroying for all experiencing this. We are now funding an online school (wk 1) which is better for DD but so tricky with work. MH in tatters. Schools cannot manage. It's not bloody wishy washy parents, those articles that suggest this should spend a day (or more) in our shoes.

Are schools even bothered? DS hasn’t been to school for over two months. School doesn’t even ask where he is anymore and no effort is being made to get him back. I can only assume it’s easier for school him not being there.

I think because Covid inadvertantly show there was a way (albeit very imperfect) to do things without schools, those kids for whom school never 'worked' were left finding the thought they had to go back pretty untenable, and I understand that. I also know that their parents are really trying to help, they are not 'enabling' their kids to avoid school - I have 4 or 5 friends stuck in what seems like an endless battle trying to either get their kids into school or find some sort of alternative provision they can manage. And all of these kids are neurodiverse.

for my family the start of secondary coincided with Covid. Both children are now awaiting to be assessed for adhd/autism. (I was diagnosed last year, their dad is autistic). Looking back, the school we thought was best just...wasn't. Too big, too many strict rules, no flexibility, poor communication, sen department underfunded and overworked. We've had a suicide attempt, school avoidance, self harm, anorexia, CAMHS involvement. I withdrew one child for six months but kept the other on roll despite her not going for six months. I managed to find a smaller school and whilst there are some issues, they tend to work with us, not against us.

smaller, more flexible and well funded schools are the answer. (I think) however that isn't what the government want to hear.

It can't. When you have a third to 2/3 of year groups in some schools being identified as SEN it's impossible to make the adjustments required to meet every individual need.

I see many sides to this, having been a very anxious child in the late 80s who struggled with the transition to secondary and cried every day for the 1st term, had poor attendance as I'd fake illness to not go. Had I been given the option of homeschooling or just not going to school full stop, I would have taken it and then likely not ever returned. As it was, I did settle in after several months of being extremely distressed.

In adulthood I work in a field which is tied in to education and have seen the education system fail many but also seen in some cases, it make such adjustments and concessions that in my opinion the child/adolescent given such control over what they would or wouldn't do that the approach ultimately failed anyway because they were never able to become more resilient because they quickly opted out of any situation which caused uncomfortable feelings.

And there will always be some children/adolescents who just don't want to be in education regardless of how it is adjusted for them or they have such unreasonable expectations that it is unworkable.

There are no easy answers and in the meantime, teachers and schools are on their knees with ever increasing numbers of SEN children and not able to meet everyone's needs.

That's not the answer for all kids.

We kept going until our child started seriously trying to kill himself. The time he tried to throw himself in front of a gritter truck having jumped out of his bedroom window was the last time I tried to force him in to a harmful environment.

It did the opposite of building resilience.

He took several years to recover and missed out on all of high school because he was traumatised.

He now has 100% attendance at a mainstream 6th form and is doing well in his A levels and plans to go away to university in September.

Mainstream schools are not set up for neurodiverse children.

Many suitable schools / provisions were closed in the name of 'inclusion'.

To the OP who asked if they even care, interesting you should mention this. As in my pp, my son's attendance hasn't been great. I received an email around December asking me to come in for a meeting regarding his attendance, I responded with convenient dates and times and never heard back.

I called him in sick on Tuesday and again today, though this morning asked the receptionist to please put me through to someone I could discuss his attendance with, she said nobody available.

So I am well on board with liaising with the school in relation to his poor attendance as there is valid reason but they don't appear to have the resources to see/hear from me regarding the poor attendance.

I think people assume there are rules for no reason. I know my school crack down on uniform because it turns out that those children persistently not in correct uniform often have other issues going on that were flying under the radar. It has been a way to identify children that need more support.

The issues with bathrooms are never ending. Some teens choose to hang out in the toilets and intimidate others that try to come in. There just aren't enough staff to constantly monitor all the toilets. The children want to go to the toilet in lesson time because it feels safer, but that disrupts the lessons. One child going occasionally may not be a big deal but 20 going out of a lesson one after the other gets very disruptive. Also, some say they need the toilet just so that they can join the hordes truanting round the corridors. I'm not saying schools that close the bathrooms have got the right answer but I can see where it is coming from.

There are lots of intersecting reasons-

poor support for neurodivergent children, stricter behaviour rules in lots of schools, a more academic curriculum with fewer vocational options, pandemic with online learning and being told to stay home with any symptoms of illness, increase in home educating.

Flexischooling isn't an unofficial arrangement whereby a child goes in and out of school as they please. Its formalised with the school and agreed days. Some schools also require evidence of what's covered on those days. Or ask certain things to be covered. It allows a more holistic approach to education and learning. For some pupils, it may mean spending 1 day a week playing football to a high level, or painting or music. For others it may be taking time away from the hussle and bussle of school to focus on an area they've struggled to grasp in the classroom, taking time to learn it in a way that works for them. It won't work for all pupils for sure. But for quite a few it would. It needs to be an option.

The issue is at the moment schools just decline these requests. Even when faced with pupils with school refusal, SEN, neurodiversity or other challenges who are clearly struggling in the classroom 5 days a week. Flexi allows these pupils a balance. It also has so many benefits in teaching young people how to learn for themselves prior to further and higher education. Its not an extra day off school for a jolly.