Up to 100,000 children missing from school rolls

[TheDailyCarbunkle]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-60054253

If anyone has any doubt about the risk created by lockdowns, doubt no more. Many of those children will be absolutely fine, well cared for, educated at home. But many many of them will not - without regular attendance at school and someone outside their family monitoring them daily, they will have just fallen through the cracks. Who knows what the final fallout of this will be?

@Thesearmsofmine

The fact that 100,000 children are missing is a huge problem.

But are they missing? My children are not in school but they are most certainly not missing. I would be interested to know how many children are really missing and how many simply aren’t on a school roll, there is a big difference between the two and I find it pretty insulting to say my children should be red flagged because I chose to home educate instead of opting into the school system which is not compulsory.

Did you read the article?

Covid gave the push to look at it and realise the extent of what they had been knowingly ignoring forever.

But, when the Scottish government came up with a plan to be able to know where all children were and a structure where somebody would take final responsibility for knowing where they were and looking for them if they didn't appear on rolls, patient lists, etc, there were howls of rage online about how dare they invade privacy/it's all a plan to steal our children away.

So in that respect, the lockdowns have finally created the will to ask and when the scale of the issue was shown, rather than kicking it back into the long grass, it's created the will and hopefully funding for something to actually be done about it.

There are massive and genuine data and privacy issues with keeping track of children and they're really hard to deal with so I have some sympathy with how slow the process has been. Some of it is relatively simple though such as the ability to share legitimate data between LAs - it's shocking at how hard something that basic can be. It takes a while to sort it out but really the lack of will to get it done is frustrating.

Op your arguments are nonsensical.
Because the lack of mitigation in schools and the country generally caused that second school closure.
Other countries with masks wearing by say 5+ didnt have closures.
And the virus isnt minor to kids - we actually dont know what organ damage is being done. With research saying its affecting memory -which no doubt would affect learning.

Im certainly not happy with being prevented from getting my primary kids vaccinated. And yes im sure famikies living with vulnerable people woukdnt be happy - our school is mixing all tpyear groups in some clubs now.
Whereas hen it comes to it parents do not prioritise education - they are off to large class parties with no masks on softplay cinema etc. And seeing relatives indoors.

So your arguing that children should be in school without mitigations that would help reduce the spread and therefore stop the NHS becoming overwhelmed. And make it safer so that vuneravle children could attend.
Plus your arguing that sen childrennthat are out of school becaise the school cant meet their needs should be in school. Is this with adequate support or without?

@Covidworries

So your arguing that children should be in school without mitigations that would help reduce the spread and therefore stop the NHS becoming overwhelmed. And make it safer so that vuneravle children could attend. Plus your arguing that sen childrennthat are out of school becaise the school cant meet their needs should be in school. Is this with adequate support or without?

Are you not understanding what I'm saying? If you read it again I said that mitigations may slow the spread but they certainly don't protect individual children.

I have no idea what you're on about re sen children. Can you give me a quote that makes you think I said that?

@TheDailyCarbunkle

People who say 'this was a problem pre-covid' are right but I'm struggling to understand the point they're making? Is it that, because it was a problem pre-covid the fact that lockdowns made it worse is a non-issue? Or what?

The whole bollocks about making schools 'covid-safe' really makes me angry. It is just pure nonsense to think there is any reliable way to ensure that a highly transmissible airborne infection isn't spread among children who are in a room together all day every day. The position that it is more important for children to miss education than to run the very small risk (to them personally) of being very ill with covid is, frankly, idiotic. If you expect your child to be constantly protected from illness, then you'll have to lock them in an airtight room forever. It's just not possible. The only thing mitigations like ventilation etc do is slow down transmission (often not very effectively) which might be good for the overall burden of disease but does absolutely nothing for the children themselves, who may not get covid in January but instead get it in February. Perpetually 'protecting' them, while limiting their lives and putting them at risk by damaging their education makes no sense.

I agree that multiple services should be involved in this issue and that funding and resourcing is the major problem. People seem to be reading too much into the fact that this story is about the school roll - the school roll represents the extent to which children are present and visible in the normal, everyday system of childhood. If anyone isn't accounted for on it, there could be a very good explanation for it, but it raises a red flag. The fact that 100,000 children are missing is a huge problem. It's not implying that schools have to solve the problem, it's just talking about the fact that the problem exists.

I am sick of the constant mentioning of the fact that some children attended school throughout. Apart from the fact that this shows that children going to school wasn't the major threat some people made it out to be (otherwise it would never be ethical to send any child to school) it misses the fact that many children were at home without the daily interaction from mid March - September 2020 and January- March 2021. While there might have been some justification for the closure in 2020 the closure in 2021 was completely inexcusable - children were let down in an absolutely massive, unforgivable way. And anyone spouting about the fact that vulnerable children were in school is either stupid or covering the fact that they know full well that thousands of vulnerable children aren't identified in any way - they live with violence, neglect, abuse and chaos every single day and not a soul knows about it. Those children were just left there, no outlet, no support for months on end. There is no justification for it.

The point people are making is that the 100K ballpark figure was the same pre-covid, it's been a figure bandied about since at least 2018, ome educators know about it because since 2017/18 there have been two national consultations in reference to home ed, the first finished in 2018, the second in 2019. Home educators barely had time to breathe before another consultation was announced, the 100K figure was used to support the reasons behind holding another consultation and as previously stated it also includes children who are known to be home educated and as such, ARE 'visible'. I don't think anyone here is disputing that children who are indeed missing or abused is horrific.

The problem is that purposely misleading statistics are being shared and include those who are for all intents and purposes, visible and not even classed as missing. Meaning the actual figure is much lower given that the number of home educated children known about is between 50K-70K which accounts for approximately 95% of home ed kids. (Again I haven't looked it up in a few years now) so to include them is actually pretty bloody insulting to home educating parents such as myself who work their arses off doing what they feel is best for their children, as do the majority or other parents, whether they send their children to school or not.

OP, I think you have misunderstood why schools being such high risk settings for Covid transmission is such an issue for some families that they have chosen to de-register students rather than send their children back into school.

• Some children have been instructed by their own paediatricians that they must still isolate. This presents a problem for e.g. siblings - parents, ime, have generally been able to make arrangements with understanding employers to wfh in the light of their child's extreme vulnerability, but siblings are still expected in school. Families may deregister all children to protect the extremely vulnerable child.

• Some families similarly have CEV adults - parents, other carers such as grandparents - living in the family, which creates the same issue.

• Some families have a family member undergoing or, worse, waiting for critical treatment. Hanging on a waiting list for surgery is bad enough, without also knowing that if you test positive for Covid, your months / years delayed slot will be given to someone else - again, i know of families where a parent reluctantly keeps a child at home for quite long periods because an operation before which the family has had to isolate is repeatedly cancelled.

Even for those families that decide to send children into school despite the risks it poses to CEV adults - the mental and emotional strain on the children can be enormous, can lead to school refusal, and as I have repeatedly said, the fact that CAMHS is completely overwhelmed and has a 2 year+ waiting list means that there is no support.

It is also worth noting that the alternative course of action that you are now proposing - that every school [I presume you actually mean 'every service that works with children - so including social services, all therapists, Ed Psychs, family support workers etc etc] should have remained fully open to all children and families throughout the entire pandemic, despite transmission risks - also came with significant downsides. We, as I am sure all other schools do as well, have newly-vulnerable children due to the death or serious Covid-related illness of parents or carers. In our case, these occurred when the schools were open - late 2020, mid 2021 delta wave - and in at least 1 case can be linked to children bringing the virus home. That's not damage-free for children either.

Should the country be able to identify where its children are, and provide all the support services they need, whether in school or in other services? Absolutely, and this has always been the case.

Are there 100,000 'lost' children? No.

The point being the 100,000 figure includes children who arent in school because the school cant meet their needs. They arent actually invisable. And the number hasnt grown since pre covid despite many people since choosing to home educate. So it isnt a new problem and cant been blammed on lockdowns

@HSHorror

Op your arguments are nonsensical. Because the lack of mitigation in schools and the country generally caused that second school closure. Other countries with masks wearing by say 5+ didnt have closures. And the virus isnt minor to kids - we actually dont know what organ damage is being done. With research saying its affecting memory -which no doubt would affect learning.

Im certainly not happy with being prevented from getting my primary kids vaccinated. And yes im sure famikies living with vulnerable people woukdnt be happy - our school is mixing all tpyear groups in some clubs now.
Whereas hen it comes to it parents do not prioritise education - they are off to large class parties with no masks on softplay cinema etc. And seeing relatives indoors.

When you say 'the virus isn't minor to kids,' I assume you're suggesting that each individual child needs to be protected from getting covid at any point. You do realise that school mitigations don't do that? At all? They change the time a child gets covid, but they don't prevent it.

Your assertion that countries with masks wearing by 5+ didn't have closures isn't actually true - have you just made that up?
Greece has had extremely strict mask wearing by children at all school ages and their schools were closed from October to May 2021.

There are many other examples from countries across the world, including Ireland, which had mask wearing and closures.

Sweden, meanwhile, never mandated mask wearing at school and school has stayed open for everyone under the age of 16 for the entirety of the pandemic.

If you're going to make points, at least make ones that are actually right.

@Covidworries

The point being the 100,000 figure includes children who arent in school because the school cant meet their needs. They arent actually invisable. And the number hasnt grown since pre covid despite many people since choosing to home educate. So it isnt a new problem and cant been blammed on lockdowns

Ok so are you saying they're lying in the article when they state that the numbers have increased?

It is possibly also worth saying that of course every service working with children knows that the 'formally identified as vulnerable' children are not the only children who are actually vulnerable. However, one reason that children are identified as vulnerable is that their main carer, sibling etc is critically ill / disabled. One reason why not all of these children attended school during lockdowns, despite being both eligible and encouraged, was that the very reason they were vulnerable also meant the family was particularly at risk through Covid. It is entirely understandable that some of those families chose not to - and in some cases still choose not to - send their children into schools during periods when Covid rates are high.

[I have first found the 100,000 figure quoted from a report by NACRO in 2003 called 'Missing Out' - well before the pandemic by anyone's standards]

I think that the numbers electively home educating, or absent from school through mental ill-health or lack of a placement suitable for their needs, is higher post-pandemic.

Whether the number of children who are ACTUALLY invisible is higher is perhaps more of a moot point. It des require someone to compile a full list of all children, and then subtract all those whose whereabouts are known.

I am also keen that, rather than assuming that children in school are 'OK, so we don't need to worry about them', we should instead be asking whether we have all the services for children working at the capacity and speed they need to be so that all children - whether in school or not - are having their needs met.

Schools have always been a useful - though very much not the only - 'front door' via which children in need can be identified and directed to appropriate services. However, what is the point if, when neglect or abuse is noticed by school, or when specific SEN is suspected, referrals are made but absolutely nothing is done because of lack of funding and capacity in all the other services? This was our experience during lockdowns, but was also our experience well beforehand, and has continued to be our experience since.

If we want schools to remain open and for children to attend them 'because that is a way of spotting their needs / abuse / risk of harm', we MUST be ensuring that all the onward services are ready and waiting to receive and help those children too.

OP yes of course I have read the article and the many articles that have come in the years before with the exact same figures being touted. Just because this might be new information to you, those of us who have home educated for years have seen the same things time and time again. The numbers should be questioned because as @Aveisenim has already stated these numbers include children who are not missing or invisible at all.

I believe they are manipulating data to make it fit the agenda they have.

@Covidworries

I believe they are manipulating data to make it fit the agenda they have.

Absolutely. They want a register and it has been on the cards for years, this kind of data is the easy way to get it.

Equally, failing to make schools safe for them to return to keeps children out of school who could reasonably return

Children were just as “safe” in school during Covid, as they were before, and will be for time to come.
Covid is a mild illness in childhood, equivalent to any number of other common viruses, and those children who haven’t had it already, are going to get it some time soon.
Just please give over already.

Bizawit,

As I have said several times, the risk is not (usually) to the child themselves, but via them to CEV siblings or family members.

I know nobody whose non-CEV children are absent from school because of worries about the child themselves catching Covid.

I know of a number of families where the family have decided that the risks brought back from school to CEV siblings or family members are currently too great, and I also know families where paediatricians have advised that it is not safe for a child to return at present.

(Also noting that the risk is not necessarily to the family member's health directly from Covid, but because them catching Covid and testing positive will further delay or prevent critical treatment / operations that have often been long-delayed)

Families with CEV members should absolutely have (had) provisions made for them - including in the case of needing to keep children home temporarily. When prevalence is this high, no amount of “measures” that can realistically be put in place are going to prevent high risk of transmission , and there is no excuse for closing schools which are essentially to the well-being of the remaining majority of children.

*essential

@Covidworries

I believe they are manipulating data to make it fit the agenda they have.

What agenda? That's a genuine question btw, because I don't know what it might be.

Bizawit, this thread isn't about closing schools, but about headlines about 'vanishing' children.