To think there is nothing wrong with saying: “School is not optional, there will be consequences if you don’t attend, and the only person this’ll impact is you?

[ThatAmberBee]

I don’t understand why some people get so upset when parents are firm about school attendance. At the end of the day, missing school only hurts the child, and they’re the ones who’ll face the consequences in the long run. Isn’t it fair to make that clear?

It's also categorically not true that a child missing school mainly hurts them.

Just ask the thousands and thousands of parents in this country (mostly mums) who can't work because their kids are out of school.

We are missing thousands of trained educated women from the professions. They want to work!

What about the thousands of children who are desperate for a school place but the local authorities drag their heels for years, leaving the children rotting at home.

Having been in the situation of spending 3 years taking the LA to court to get a school place for my SEN child - I am now firm in the knowledge that school is regarded as optional by the authorities whenever it suits them. The double standard in operation is shocking: fines for children missing school and then on the other hand deliberately withholding school places for other children.

I was at school in the 90s. The odd day off, holiday or sunny extended weekend did nothing to scupper my chances socially, academically or otherwise.

Probably already been pointed out.

Educating your child is a legal requirement. Attending school is not.

If you CHOOSE to make use of the schools provided by the LEA, then you abide by their requirements. But you can CHOOSE to home school, employ tutors, use private schools in order to meet the legal requirements.

I'm nearly 60, until the James Bulger murder, school attendance wasn't as enshrined in law. In some areas the school attendance officers were more conscientious, they'd knock on your front door, but let's face it, they'd pick carefully who they'd follow up. For the generation before me, it still wasn't uncommon for lads at 12/14 to go into trades, or girls be kept off school to help in the house. I can remember in the 80's a furore around children not being able to work in the family business. It was 1989 that the Children's Act was introduced. As I was leaving school, qualifications were still optional and a lot of jobs didn't need a degree unlike today, 2003 for Social Work. A lot less children did qualifications. We could also smack each other, so bullying could be sorted outside of school. My DH couldn't get over the homework our primary aged children got, "he was still just colouring in at 7". He went into a trade, his parents wouldn't let him go for a career. Completely different times, stupid comparison. We were rebuilding the country post WW2.

But EBSA is likely caused by a set of circumstances in school, not a medical or mental health difficulty.
In my case as a teen it was a girl walking up to me and punching me in the arm. With a tighter reign on this, I wouldn't have started to have 'stomach aches' to avoid being in this particular scenario again.
These days kids are more likely to just declare they're not going, but back then you needed a reason and an anxious twist in the stomach at the thought of being randomly punched was a good enough reason.
I changed schools and the 'stomach aches' stopped. Bingo, no perfectly logical reaction to something piss poor happening to me in school. Now labelled as EBSA.

@LoudlyProudlyHorrid Not always true at all. My DD loved school. Had no issues with the work, bullies, friends or teachers. It was the transition to a huge secondary with loud, crowded corridors and bells but she couldn't actually articulate that at the time, just froze. Literally was physically frozen in the car, sobbing because she wanted to get out be normal. It was absolutely terrifying for both of us because we could "fix" a problem that existed. Eventually we had to bite the bullet and find school fees for a tiny, quiet pastorally focused private (so yes I am one of those who has been very active on the VAT threads). It took some months for her to be able to fully recover and go every day and even now, some years later, she has the odd day where she just can't but it is very rare now. Lots and lots of the EBSA cases are similar, underlying often undiagnosed AuADHD that has been manageable at primary level but not secondary. At which point, CAMHS is going to be too slow to get them help before the exam years. I am in huge debt and my medium/ long term finances are wrecked but my dd and also eventually my ds for similar reasons have access to an education setting that they can manage.

Couldn’t you apply the same logic to an adult having a nervous breakdown? “You must go to work, and that’s final!”

I can see both sides of this. I used to work as a school welfare officer. I worked with the attendance team, and I used to get really pissed off at the idiots, who would say to a really struggling child, “you must come to school! It’s in your best interests!” When infact, it wasn’t in their best interest at all, school was making them want to harm themselves. I felt like I was inbetween a rock and a hard place.

I was hauled into the heads office once when a family had decided to home educate and sent the deregistration email to the school, with an aside partially thanking me for talking to them about it - I had home educated my eldest for most of primary after a horrific start, so I knew that sometimes, school doesn’t suit all children. NOT that I told these parents that, they said they wished home education wasn’t illegal and I pointed out that it really wasn’t and they must have looked in to it further. They called me at school 6 months later to tell me that the child was absolutely thriving and so much happier.

There are children who need more help than a school can offer and it’s heartbreaking to see them refuse school. I used to try as much as I could to help the children and families who were really struggling, but no one else really cared.

On the other hand, you have parents who just can’t be fucked to get them there. Or the parents who tell children that school doesn’t matter.

The school I worked in had the odd parent like that, but we now live in a deprived area and the primary school my DDs go to really struggle with attendance. They publish whole school attendance each week and it rarely makes 90%. It’s always 80 something.

My mother said she'd have physically carried me in if I'd refused.

I'm sorry to hear of your experience and glad there was a good outcome. I was replying to a post that stated "This post b wasn't about kids with EBSA or SEND needs"
And I'm all for private schools which are a lifeline for these kids. I had two years at a private school after my school incident - my parents could just stretch to those two years to see me through GCSEs. We have a local private school that provides very reasonably priced arrangements so that home ed kids can sit GCSEs. There is no other offering for miles around, so they're doing a very kind service.

I was a school refuser myself, actually. Well, just a skiver as we were called in the early 90’s, I was hardly ever there. My attendance must have been through the floor. I’d even injure myself to get a week off.

I was bullied to fuck through secondary, it was relentless. No one cared, I was blamed for it by the teachers and by my parent. Classic victim blaming “well, you are fat, maybe if you didn’t keep missing PE lessons, you wouldn’t be so fat and they would stop” (thanks, form tutor). I used to skive PE as they would steal my underwear and the teacher would then tell me to toughen up and just wear my skirt for the rest of the day.

Some children struggle for a variety of issues.

My DD loved school. Had no issues with the work, bullies, friends or teachers. It was the transition to a huge secondary with loud, crowded corridors and bells but she couldn't actually articulate that at the time, just froze.

Secondary schools have a lot to answer for. Inappropriate environments for many 11 yos. Such a shame when lots of kids have a lovely, nurturing primary school experience.

You couldn't be more wrong OP,

School is optional/ education is not.
School is not the best place for ALL children to be educated.
For many SEN is not diagnosed until after a period of school refusal and lying to a child to tell them they need to be in school is damaging.

My son was a school refuser. Started to refuse in year 5 and withdrew completely in year 7. He is about to start his second year at UCL. He says himself if we'd have insisted he stay in school there is no way he would have achieved what he did by being home educated.

@Louiestopit I'm so sorry, that sounds horrendous.

This is clearly and undeniably true.

It's also fairly widely known. People whose DC aren't in this position are often still aware it goes on. And it only serves to undermine attendance messaging, when the state clearly thinks that school access is something that can be interfered with if deemed necessary.

Me and my DH are highly academic and very well qualified. Our DS struggles with school. For social reasons mostly but also he is just not academic. We do try to focus on him going but we also focus on his emotional wellness and sometimes that means not going. It's not easy to find the right balance and black and white rules don't help at all.

Yes that would definitely work for a socially anxious teenager. I'm sure they'd just settle down and start learning no problem.

I asked my mother what she'd have done if I'd school refused. She couldn't have carried me in as a teenager, but my father sure could have. They'd have made sure I went. (School was pretty awful for me, hell at primary years).

I would have taken my own life. The only peace I had was in my safe bedroom. Luckily it was the early 90s, so no social media, the worst things I would get at home were prank phone calls or them ordering pizzas to my door.

You cannot force a struggling child to just get on with things.

Mine would and did. I consider that I was very much at risk for taking my own life, except someone else came into my life at a critical point.

I didn't make my own children go to school.

@ThatAmberBeeparents get ‘upset’ because you're assertion that all kids need is a firm talking too is frankly ignorant - I can't decide whether you know this, so being purposefully goady or whether you don't, so being a bit dim? School refusal is incredibly complex and if this is all it took, we wouldn't have the huge percentage of kids struggling that we do.

I am so sorry. I cannot stand the “I would just drag them to school” brigade. They have no idea of what they are doing to a child’s mental state.

I did actually take an overdose - enough to knock me out for almost two days - when I was 15. No one noticed (my widowed dad worked double shifts). I felt very unwell when I somehow, thankfully woke up and asked to be taken to the dr, but was accused of attention seeking and lying by my dad and the school, so no medical attention was sought. Thankfully my liver seems to be unscathed 30 years on.

I am so very lucky that none of my 4 children have had issues with school (well, the youngest are 11 and 5, but no issues yet, touch wood).

My eldest did, in reception. After a very tough couple of terms, we removed him to home educate him and it was the best thing we did for him. He decided he wanted try school for year 5, and he was ready then and thrived. But if he hadn’t, I would have taken him out again.

I do understand that I was in a very privileged position to be able to stay at home with him though.

I'm glad you got through and are still here. I'm sorry your parents didn't take you seriously and were so unsupportive. I am sure that if I'd taken an overdose, my mother would have actually taken that seriously. On the other hand, once I did tell her I was going to kill myself and she let me stay home from school, but still went to work leaving me alone all day. The day off did help.

Mine have been given the choice. Either school or home school. As someone said above, education is compulsory, however how that is done I am flexible on.

We picked a nuturing one - moved into catchment for it. Great for two years - then head and large number of staff left. It's been complete opposite since then.

Our youngest really struggled in Y10 - but the school was fine with her missing lessons as long as she was on site - showing attendance really was a tick box excerise for them - no consulation with us or probe into what issue actually were.

It was all on us to get her back into lessons and/or make up what she'd missed.

She likely ND but the lack of toilet access, making it suddenly harder for them to actually eat during the day - and the general decline in behavior and noise adding to stress plus two very poor classes and she couldn't cope in some lessons. The eating restrictions lifted and two classes changed and work at home caught her up and despite Y11 being a stressful year she's been fine and able to stay in all lessons.