SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

Political scrutiny and policy development has focused on school attendance in recent years due to the drive to raise educational standards and academic achievement. This has created greater pressure on schools to monitor and improve their attendance levels, along with higher levels of anxiety in pupils.

To parents of school refusing children it quickly becomes apparent that the protection of school attendance figures, and related fear of Ofsted scrutiny of attendance records and procedures, has become a main priority in schools.

If a child can be marked as attending it does not seem to matter whether they are gaining any benefit from being in the school environment or not. Support for individual needs and protection of children’s mental health has become a lesser concern in comparison.

When a child is suffering with high levels of anxiety their school attendance reduces to a level that is deemed unacceptable by their school and local authority. This triggers the involvement of educational welfare officers or attendance officers and subsequent threats of fines, prosecution and school attendance orders. This suggests that absence due to mental health difficulties is being treated as truancy, we think this is cruel, unhelpful and unfair.

Shockingly, a new tactic is being reported when a parent explains a child’s absence is due to overwhelming anxiety; where head teachers are referring families to social services with accusations that parents are fabricating illness because schools refuse to accept anxiety as a reason for absence or as a SEND requiring school support.

This harsh approach is frustrating when you consider that there is no published evidence that parental legal sanctions are effective in getting young people into school, or that if they attended in an anxious state they would actually be able to achieve anything academically. Evidence also shows that more frequently prosecuting authorities have no have better attendance than those that use prosecution less often.

When a child’s school attendance is affected by a medical or health issue existing government guidance states that local authorities should make educational provision for children who are absent for more than 15 days where the absence is expected to continue. In practice however, the majority of families find that this guidance is ignored.

‘School refusal’ is a term commonly used to describe school attendance difficulties where children experience severe anxiety and distress in relation to attending school, often resulting in prolonged absences. Children experience a range of psychological and physical symptoms, and in severe cases suffer with depression, self-harm and sometimes attempt suicide. School refusal is acknowledged as a multi-dimensional, dynamic and diverse emotional reaction, meaning each case is individual and complex to resolve.

School refusal occurs when stress exceeds support, when risks are greater than resilience and when ‘pull’ factors that promote school non-attendance overcome the ‘push’ factors that encourage attendance. (Thambirajah et. al, 2008)

All over the UK, families are struggling with children and young people who are severely anxious about school. Their anxiety often relates to the constant academic pressure of current education assessment policies; a lack of effective provision for special educational needs; cultures of bullying and intimidation; or difficulties related to physical health issues – any of which create school cultures and environments that damage mental wellbeing. 

Thousands of children are missing out on both an education, and treatment for their mental health difficulties. They become depressed, self-harm and sometimes suicidal, yet schools, local authorities and CAMHS ignore them.

Families are in crisis because they cannot access help, and as a consequence they are being fined, prosecuted and referred to social services for non-attendance at school.

What needs to change?

Attitudes: 

Enmeshed within family experiences are numerous emotional, behavioural, and attitudinal reactions expressed by people in different roles. These attitudes and reactions affect how school refusing children and their families are viewed, treated and supported.

Parents are reporting a widespread lack of recognition of mental health difficulties in schools, a lack of training, a lack of empathy, and a general unwillingness to admit that current practices are creating and exacerbating mental health problems. As a consequence children and parents are being blamed for these difficulties and denied support.

Alternative provision for children experiencing difficulties at school varies greatly at a local level. It is generally extremely difficult to access because schools and local authorities ignore relevant existing government guidelines. Equally, government has neglected to investigate these issues, or act, for far too long.

Attendance Policies: 

Current attendance policies create a situation where parents face intense daily pressure to force severely distressed child to attend school, or to provide the school with medical evidence demanded to authorise absence. This medical evidence is almost impossible to obtain quickly because families become stuck in an endless cycle of CAMHS waiting lists, rejections or inaction.

Schools are given little option to offer any flexibility or empathy because they fear OFSTED scrutiny and criticism. So, instead they force attendance, issue fines and refer parents for prosecution. This makes an extremely difficult situation much, much worse. Moreover, there is no evidence that legal action improves or resolves mental health related non-attendance (indicating the only benefit is protecting school data).

Trapped in this ‘no-mans-land’ of support, some families are even referred to Social Services under accusations of ‘educational neglect’ or even Fabricating or Inducing Illness. This seems to be a tactic used in growing regularity and reported by 20% of parents who completed our recent school refusal survey. This tactic is seemingly being used to deter families from demanding expensive SEND or alternative provision, or from highlighting the deficiencies within the education system.

SEND Policies: 

Many families have children who are diagnosed or suspected of having learning needs and differences such as Autism, ADHD and Dyslexia. Parents often spend months, or years, struggling to navigate the SEND system to obtain any type of diagnosis or provision. A lack of training and funding cuts mean schools do not assess or provide for SEND, while Local Authorities do their utmost to delay or avoid assessing for EHCPs to save money.

Academic Pressure:

Day after day, we hear from parents desperately worried that children are not coping with academic pressure relating to testing, exams and achievement expectations.

Frustratingly, there is little recognition of the need to address these underlying causes of mental health difficulties in schools.

It is important to consider that once children can access educational environments that do not place unreasonable academic demands and pressure on them; Provision that does recognise and support their individual needs, they often recover - given time, empathy and understanding. These features are often missing from current provision, and furthermore, there is absolutely no accountability when children are left unsupported - these are all factors where change is desperately needed.