Why is EBSA more common nowadays?

[HotLikePapaJohns]

Why is EBSA more common nowadays?

I have read on other threads that it's always been an issue but I don't remember it as a child. Yes, there was some truancy in secondary but not in primary.

Is it that kids are more able to express their feelings? Or that school has become harder? What can be done about it?

What is this dystopian “all we had was a hoop and a stick” nonsense. I was at school in the 80s. Home was always preferable to school. We did have toys, and videos, and gaming devices. TV existed. I had books. I would have happily stayed at home all day reading, that was a fantasy world I could escape to.

The statistics about kids missing school show that since school became mandatory in the 1800s, 8-10% of kids missed school. This was the same figure until the kids returned post covid, then it doubled. Nothing has changed in what’s available at home since 2022. Stands to reason that when people realised their child didn’t have to be in school full time in order to learn, and actually they thrived, parents became less concerned about their own kid propping up some false target schools are forced to meet.

My daughter struggled at school, was given as much leeway as she wanted, but attended anyway, despite the fact it was very bad for her mental health. During covid, at 9 years old, she still did all her school work (in way less time) and added in some other subjects she learned off her own back. She did all this with very little help from us. She’s in 5th year at school and for the past few years has made the choice whether she attends or not. All work is on Teams. She’s often not in class in school because the lift is broken so she is well used to working in her own. She is targeted to get all As in her highers.

School does not work for every child. Those with sensory related or attention disorders can find it hugely overwhelming no matter how they try and change the environment.

Pretty much every post is along the lines of “my child won’t go to school so they stay home”

No electronics, no time out of the house and nothing fun would soon sort them out but some par net are scared of discipline.

As I said, the school offered various solutions and tried to work with the parent/ child. This child had no sensory issues, or additional needs etc. If this had been the case I’d have been more sympathetic.

Your last sentence nails it. Schools need to meet children’s needs to make school the better alternative. That’s the bottom line.

Is there any point looking back to what schools were like over 40 years ago, life was completely different then. No social media, respect for elders was instilled, Ofsted wasn’t a thing (although there were inspectors) so attendance wasn’t so important for statistics, covid hadn’t happened. There were also more ‘special’ school, but also ND wasn’t as recognised, although those students didn’t have pressure put in them to reach certain grades/fulfil SATs criteria.

@BoredZelda- my teens’ already quite fragile MH collapsed in lockdown because they couldn’t be in school (or anywhere). Routine was out the window and it was a total shitshow that I’m not sure either have really totally recovered from & it had a wide reaching impact.
I did find with their peers either kids struggled to go back to education after covid because they liked being at home (or got in to the habit of it) or they weren’t desperate to get back to school/routine.

Also (am on a roll now). Back in the 80s and even 90s there wasn’t such an expectation that you’d go to uni and many children went to work straight from school. You didn’t have to stay in some sort of education until 18 either.

I did one set of mock exams before my GCSEs mid 90s. My son has done 4 sets of full mocks (in the Hal) this year (yr 11). He did 6 lots in year 10. In English they don’t read whole books they learn passages and how to pass exam. For English language they write a text themselves then learn it and how to adapt it for different exam answers. Not only is that stressful it’s also really dull.

The twats on this thread suggesting you make home less fun ,is like telling a wheelchair using child that the should just try harder to walk. Maybe make the wheelchair less easy and they will regain use of their

I have visited our local primary school during lessons, to listen to children read. I could not get over how loud the children were. I think it would be hard for a nd child to be in that environment. Years ago classes were silent.

No SATS in the 90s? I did SATS in the 90s - 1992 maybe. Maybe they were different? But they were definitely called SATS. At our primary school we had 1 hour of music lessons a week, 1 hour of PE, a couple of hours of art I think, but the rest was just standard learning.

I only have anecdotal evidence. Really smart boy, knew loads, thrived up until secondary. Not particularly 'popular' and a little socially awkward but there was no bullying involved, he had very supportive parents who clearly valued learning. Wheels came off at secondary school. He was in lessons less and less, tried to come into class but repeatedly broke down in tears and had to leave. Initially he had some one to one somewhere, but in the end he didn’t even make it to school, let alone class.

He's now working as a shelf stacker at my local Tesco. Yes, he's 'gainfully employed' but all I can remember is that junior school kid who had hopes, dreams, ambitions and i struggle to square that with the man I regularly see now.

This was early 90s. It happened back then, the difference is that now we understand that 'employed, whatever that looks like' is the bare minimum we want for our children if they're capable of having aspirations beyond that. And rightly so.

With respect to the 'poor parenting' argument. When my 14 year old son entered mental health crisis, the impact on the school staff was phenomenal. He began hearing voices, running from school (often into a very busy main road) and self harming at school and at home. When he was at school, it took a team of staff to try to keep him safe. At home, we could not keep him safe either, and when his younger brother (13) became unable to attend school (he wanted to go, but he was shaking, sick and terrified), the situation at home became completely unmanageable and outright dangerous.

We had help from the school. They did their best, and we had some support from CAMHS. Yet, I had to leave my job to try to firefight at home. My husband's precarious mental health broke completely. We separated (he is now in a care home). My son went into a CAMHS unit and his brother eventually, after two years of trying to access five hours of home tuition, joined a class at the local PRU, on a one to one basis. They are now in their twenties and are still seriously affected by their mental health issues.

No-one would actively choose to keep their children at home because it is the easiest option. Serious anxiety or other mental health problems are not restricted to one context, and the effects of serious and unregulated mental health issues on a school community, and on a family are terrific and long lasting.

I'm sorry he/ you went through that. It's a very familiar experience to me, though my dd is much younger.

If only we'd raised them to be 'more resilient', eh? 🙄

I remember in my class some DC that struggled to attend that recieved awards in assembly if they managed to go to school for so many days a term. I also remember DC being taken back home with parents in infants if they became too upset at drop off. My sister and friend did not attend secondary enough to pass their GCSEs.

When I was at primary school in the 80s it was much more orderly - there was the odd bit of bad behaviour but it was always dealt with quickly by the teacher.

There were a lot more special schools so a lot of kids who needed extra support were able to receive it in a specialist setting. Then the few kids who needed extra help in mainstream received it from a teaching assistant.

Consequently the classroom was a fairly calm place.

I’ve spent a bit of time in current primary classrooms and my thoughts are:

— way too much visual stimulation on the walls, floor ceiling. Some reception/P1 classrooms I’ve visited you can barely move for the amount of “stuff”
— lots of “free play/flow” I agree this is helpful for development of a lot of children, for shy, autistic or quiet children this can be an absolute nightmare as they struggle with the unstructured setting. It also means that inevitably the noise levels/chaos goes up
– children who are clearly struggling with overwhelm/sensory issues due to autism or adhd are forced into large classrooms that do not meet their needs. This can often lead to that child school refusing OR they begin to have meltdowns in the classroom which is distressing for other children and leads to their school refusal.
– Teachers are burnt out and working at maximum capacity. They don’t have anything “extra” to give. I’ve witnessed teachers shouting at and being rude to kids, looking like they were going to fall asleep at parents evenings and making simple mistakes.

Teaching assistants have been fired. Staff are underpaid and stressed.
pandemic made staying at home to work feel possible.
higher knowledge of mental health in parents and kids- they’re more likely to allow sick days for this.
parnents working flexibly or at home more so they can physically be there with a child, and also child wanting to stay home because parent is there.

I went to to school in the late 80s / 90s. We had a class of 33, were taught in portakabins, with one TA. There was always the odd kid who was seen as “naughty” or a truanter. Those kids most probably had undiagnosed neuro diversity and would have benefited from the awareness we have now.

However, something has changed in how parents view school which has created unrealistic expectations in what it is there for. In my sons class I would say around 45% of the children have some kind of diagnosis (often not official, but made by parents). One girls mum keeps her off school for ‘wellness’ days. At one point when does neuro diversity become just an extension of what’s normal? I’m not talking about kids who clearly need additional support, or really struggle in main stream education btw, in my opinion this is a very distinct difference. But the kids in sons class are able to function in mainstream education, perhaps they need to work a bit harder to stay focussed, or maybe they have some anxiety that can be supported with a bit of forethought. And maybe it would help if their parents were able to teach them that society is about being able to operate in groups of people where you won’t always get a bespoke or tailored set up.

I’m all for listening to children and their feelings. I think loads of kids will have benefitted from current awareness of differences in learning (my mum is severely dyslexic and would have really been helped with today’s awareness). But ultimately schools are there to provide an education to lots of children, and for those children to learn how to manage group dynamics, or uncomfortable situations. It’s just not possible for school to provide a bespoke learning programme for every child that displays some level of discomfort. And I don’t think parents are doing their kids any favours by shielding them from these situations ( again not talking about bullying etc). The probablem with things like anxiety is it gets worse if you hide from it, so all advice is to try and face the worries.

Yes this, I agree. I’m autistic and I managed fine at school because the majority the time the class was silent. Now it’s a major trigger for me if I have to go into that environment!

You were probably less aware of i it in primary. I have vague memories of a girl who used to come and go from our class but I only really remember that because she and I were the only two who never moved up from the lowest session in swimming, so when she was gone I was on my own. I hate to say it but I probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise. I don't think she interacted or played much with the other children.

I always think of this quote (can’t remember the study but think it was Connelly et al?)

“Notably, 92.1 percent of children and young people currently experiencing school distress were described as neurodivergent and 83.4 percent as autistic.” In comparison, only 16.8 percent of individuals in the “no school distress” group were autistic. Moreover, autistic individuals who displayed school distress exhibited distress at a significantly earlier age than nonautistic children, and this distress was more enduring.”

Modern day schools do not meet the needs of autistic young people.

Exactly. I thrived in order and structure at school. I once commented on a thread (under a different username) that if I had had to sit next to a child with a clicky fidget toy or similar I wouldn’t have coped. I also wouldn’t have handled “movement breaks” or free play well at all. On that thread I was told I was ableist and if I truly couldn’t cope next to a child who needed a fidget toy then I needed to leave the classroom and be educated elsewhere. The child with the fidget toy was entitled to that and it was my problem I couldn’t cope with it. I replied with Perfect! I would have thrived in a tiny class with other dead silent orderly children only. But what happens then? Now you’ve got a two tier classroom system. Those who like order and sit and do their work, and those that are noisy and quite frankly a bit chaotic. What happens when the orderly class is getting much better grades? Are the school accused of “othering” the noisy kids? Because the noisy class behaviours will be very different. What if a parent wants their child in the quiet room because the child much prefers quiet, but they themselves make noise? How is that handled?

I do love a good ' I went to school of hard knocks and the university of life/ Things were different in my day' story. 😂

I was 15 in the early 80s and I can recall two neighbours of mine whose girls the same age dropped out of school and didn’t go back to take any exams. They hadn’t been school refusers before , but one of them just decided to drop out and I admit I was jealous as I loathed school, but my parents wouid not have allowed this.
I suspect that a lot of children did this , but today there is more awareness of it and schools are expected to chase it up and try to find out why. I remember pupils skipping school as well, but they did come back.

You could play outdoors too - potentially helpful for mental health.

If you read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, which looks at the mental health crisis in children he says both that children need less screen time and more freedom to play / travel independently etc outdoors. Very striking that on this thread (as generally in discussion of his recommendations) his first recommendation has been mentioned several times but his second hasn’t.

Better recording of absence as well. 35 years ago when I started school, through primary abd secondary there were a lots of children who had time off school. Nothing really happened. When I was ill at primary school my mum would write a note to explain why I was off that I would take in when I was back, no one checked when you didn't turn up. Dh didn't go for months in year 11 and just turned up for his GCSEs and his parents just let the school know he wasn't going to be there - the school said OK, he'll pass, they didn't do anything.

It didn't need a name when schools and authorities weren't really bothered.

I think you’ve misinterpreted what this poster is trying to say