To think that mass non-attendance at school is COVID-related?

[ThatDearLilacBird]

It seems like the impact of Covid is still lingering in terms of attendance. Whether it’s fear of getting sick, lingering health concerns or a change in routine during the pandemic, it feels like there’s a pattern of kids (and even parents) being less motivated to go back to school in full force. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me overthinking it?

Having worked in schools and with young people over many years, the reasons for non attendance are varied and complex and they always have been. Covid has added to it, but it’s not the root cause.

It is not the fear of getting sick. It is the belief that school is optional. Kids were excluded from schools for months on end. Why would they now thing its important to go...that's the issue.

And to add to my point. Prior to covid I would never have taken my kids out to go on holiday. Now I will.

Are people still going to be blaming covid in 100 years? No i dont notice it because of covid

'Because of covid' can also mean ramifications, not just the behaviours then. E.g. some children will also have seen parents' disabled by long covid.

It's the same in other areas of life, I'm sure. E.g. church attendance, volunteering - all of these are down among the previous cohort. It only takes one or two 'key people' to become disabled/die (both of which happened in the groups I volunteered in) for everyone else to slowly withdraw.

There are multiple reasons and yes, covid influenced several of them.

There are some DC who have ongoing health issues. And there's also been a change in the social contract regarding school attendance. That one isn't going away any time soon.

YANBU

Too many people are stupid enough to think that ‘the government didn’t care about education then so it can’t be important enough for me to worry about now’.

Completely ignoring the fact the we know the detrimental effect lockdowns had on children’s education.

The NHS has not caught up on waiting lists since 2020. If child has health or development issues, it's many, many months or years to get the appointments and go through diagnistic and support processes. This greatly exacerbates persistant absence which has the greatest impact on absence data. It took DS2 6 months to be seen "urgently" in paediatrics when his asthma was out of control and regularly affecting his attendance.

Many children with additional needs don't have appropriate school places because demand totally outstrips supply. This triggers persistant absence.

Families settling for 98%-99% attendance rather than insistantly sending under-the-weather children in is not statistically a major issue.

Chronic under-resourcing of education, health and support services is the major issue. What the lockdowns did was stall provision and cause backlogs that the systems couldn't catch-up on.

Also data systems have changed increasing usage of "unauthorised" so data is not like for like.

DS2 was "unauthorised" for vomiting and following the school's 48 hour policy because I didn't try to waste mine or the GP's time to get an appointment to prove he had a temporary, minor, self-limiting illness. After a serious asthma phase (including 999 from school) and emergency surgery for another issue, school expected medical evidence for every ailment, and the GP does not have spare appointments for that kind of trivia... or indeed the escalating asthma in the first place 🤦‍♀️

Covid had a widespread, systemic impact that shifted habits, expectations, and norms, including around school attendance. That’s doesn’t mean it’s the only reason but to act like it’s irrelevant is short-sighted. We’re still living with the aftershocks in a lot of ways.

Yes, but I think a lot of it is because of wider effects like the extended waiting lists, increased levels of anxiety in children with too much access to the internet, more parents WFH and able to keep children at home for more minor illnesses, and a break in the experience that every child just has to go to school.

Covid is still around, bad flu seasons, chronic illnesses in some DC. Mental health is another issue for others. I think attendance and missing days percentage should be tagged for reasons. It seems the data is not used in any meaningful way when reported by media or government.

Yes, it bemuses me that people think something as seismically significant as covid wouldn't still have effects a couple of years on. Remember that restrictions only ended in 2022. It is not much time at all.

That may apply in England but doesn’t account for the rest of the UK which are seeing similar absence patterns.

In my experience there are two reasons: 1) the crumbling NHS means that children’s health issues are not being addressed 2) Academy chains - some academy chains are very rigid, almost corporate-like environments. This lack of adaptability takes away autonomy from teachers and makes it difficult to make adaptations for students. Teachers are leaving in droves: school avoidance is going through the roof.

edit: actually there are a few other issues too- like the very dry curriculum with less time for creative subjects, the lack of break time/outside play.

I think there is a loss of resilience among families since Covid too. Low employment, low wages, COL crises etc have made it stressful for parents, leading to financial difficulties, health and mental health difficulties (again, not helped by our crumbling NHS). These problems have an affect on children. Suddenly, less family time because everyone is working, parents have less time to help with school work. Parents are more stressed when around their children and may no longer be able to rely on family for help and support because family are also stressed, broke, unhealthy and overworked. Less holidays and relaxation time, less money for enrichment and hobbies - the things that help kids regulate and learn so many skills like self-discipline, self-esteem, resilience.

Many parents are millennials - the generation that were told that if we went to school, worked hard and got good marks we would do well. A lot of us did those things and got stuck in minimum wage jobs anyway. We know that education and working hard doesn’t pay off, so we are less likely to push our children into school (especially when all we hear about schools is how awful behaviour is, how horrible the general environment is, how stringent the rules are - silly uniform rules, rules about eye contact and going to the toilet etc).

No. I know 4 children who have barely been to school in the last couple of years.
All of them struggled for years before covid, requests for MH support ignored, autism assessments turned down.
When they realised that during Covid they felt better and "normal" it made going back to school unbearable. They continued to be ignored when they asked for help going back after covid. There is no CAMHS support and schools are less flexible than they used to be. No wonder so many kids have crashed and burnt.
This could have been prevented by (gasp) listening to the parents pre-covid and then putting support in place when going back to school.

Probably a whole host of things contribute not limited to:

• uptick in children being diagnosed ASD
• violence in schools
• permissive parenting

No need to be snippy. Scottish school summer holidays have ended

Covid and the lockdowns broke something.

I find on here, those who were very pro-lockdown, “stay the fuck at home” types are the first now to tell others who were a lot more concerned about the long term repercussions to just “get over it, it was 5 years ago” etc.

Anyone who expressed concern about NHS backlogs or effects on young people and their mental health were shouted down as granny killers and covid deniers.

Shameful time.

Mostly due to a lot of people still WFH, so they don’t feel they have to push their kids to attend anymore - the childcare element of school attendance is not so pressing.

No it's a lot of different things; unsupported SEN/MH, chaotic home environments, bullying not addressed. How can it just be one thing in isolation? Nothing related to social trends ever is.

It could also just be that it is closely monitored and more scruinised now now than it was before, and is therefore seen as an issue. People like to blame COVID for things still, but they also like to blame pupils/parents for things that the LA and school fail at. Schools are not meeting the educatuonal needs of some the children and absence is an easy thing to blame.

I really don't think that's reasonable. To spend decades, your whole adult life underperforming or struggling with MH in some way for 18months of disruption when you were tiny? No. You make a choice to continue to blame something from that long ago or you make a choice to make positive changes to make up for any detrimental effects.

It’s ‘inclusion’ that broke my kids. When a school had no means of addressing violent bullies because they have to be ‘inclusive’ to the violent bully so many quiet, well behaved kids who are keen to learn find their mental health being utterly crushed. It’s criminal.

I don’t think it’s COVID related but I do think people like to use it as an excuse. I think it’s due to lack of discipline and consequences, whether that’s the kid not attending school, parent or the behaviour in the school.

I suppose it increases the chance of successful outcomes for those who are attending as the pool of realistic applicants for jobs will reduce. Good or bad whichever side of the fence you are on.

you don't think it has anything to do with the chronic underfunding of CAMHS, years long delays in getting diagnoses, ECHPs and simultaneously schools becoming bigger, more inflexible and less able to manage behaviour, so making settings even more unsuitable for kids with and without SEN?

To an extent, yes. When you make clear that opening pubs is more important that kids going to school you lose a great deal of credibility when you then try say how important it is that kids attend school. It doesn't help it was followed by a bunch of teachers' strikes. The whole thing had the effect of completely undermining the "school's important" message.