School plays a fundamental role in a child’s development and has a big impact on their overall well-being.
While many children enjoy school and thrive in an environment where they can be with friends and take part in different activities, it is also completely normal for them to go through a phase of mild worry about going into school – perhaps after school holidays, a period of sickness, or due to a fall out with friends – and it can be difficult for parents to know what to do for the best when these feelings surface.
Before Covid, persistent absence had been decreasing, from 16.3% in 2010/2011 to 10.9% in 2019/2020, according to government statistics. But following Covid, there has been a significant increase in absences from school. The government is working on this, and there are around 380,000 fewer pupils who were persistently absent or not attending in 2022/23 than in 2021/22. But it is still the case that more than one in five children in England have frequently missed school over the last academic year, a figure which has more than doubled, compared with pre-pandemic numbers.
Department for Education research suggests there are a number of reasons that absence from school has increased. Some children experience severe anxiety, or have complex needs or underlying conditions, that mean that school can be challenging. Where this is the case, parents can also talk to teachers and a healthcare professional, like a GP, if they haven’t done so already for guidance. For many children though, their worry is mild and temporary. In most cases, missing school is likely not the best or only option.
Doctor Sophie Mort, clinical psychologist and mental health expert at Headspace says: ‘It’s understandable that children can resist going to school when anxieties are heightened, and it’s often hard for parents to know whether to allow them to stay at home or encourage them to feel the fear and go in anyway. Being open and sharing experiences of when you have struggled can help your children.
“Kids and teens frequently experience a lot of stress and feelings of high pressure, and in many cases, don’t yet have the tools to understand or process these complex emotions. And whilst children are navigating the challenges of getting older, school can be a hard place to be both physically and mentally. Perhaps they’re becoming more conscious of their appearance, or of their different upbringings, or maybe they just see the world in a different way.”
To help you to gain a better understanding of what could be driving your child’s worry and gently encourage them to talk it through, enabling them to keep going to school, there are tips, advice and resources available.
- Appreciate that kids’ worries are normal: Children can experience feelings of anxiety to varying extents, and some much worse than others. It’s important to understand each child’s symptoms and responses to anxiety. Once you have an understanding into how they feel at specific moments, then you can start to help.
- Learn to recognise your own worries as a parent: Being open and sharing experiences of when you have struggled in the past will ultimately help your children understand that they are not the only ones with these feelings, and therefore, they may find it easier to open up. Your anxiety can sometimes rub off on your children, so try to remain calm in the way that you interact with them.
- Take advantage of the resources available: From books and online resources to apps and IRL (‘in real life’) support groups, there are so many resources at hand to consult when you are looking for ways to best support your child. Your local bookshop can be a great place to start, or search mental health websites such as Headspace, which has a number of free resources available. The article titled ‘How to beat school stress from the top down’ is a great example. The Department for Education has also collated free resources in one place, which can be accessed on the Education Hub.
- Try family meditation, mindfulness and breathing exercises: For those needing in-the-moment support, practising mindfulness or breathing exercises as a family can be effective. Both methods are proven to slow the heart rate and act as a calming mechanism. This can be done from any place, at any time.
- Take the pressure off: Many children feel different pressures about going to school, from feeling a need to be the most academic to being in the ‘right’ social group. Try encouraging your child to stay in the present, rather than fearing the next day or week of school, the next exam, and so on. Most importantly, ensure their home is a safe place of respite and support, rather than a source of more pressure.
- Talk to the school: If you’re struggling with what you should do about your child’s anxiety, you can speak to your child’s school to seek support. The school will often be able to talk to you about particular things that might be worrying your child and work with both you and them to alleviate their worries and support them to attend.
- Speak to a professional: If you or your child are struggling to cope with worries or anxiety which persists over several weeks, it’s important to seek the help of a healthcare professional, like a GP, if you haven’t done so already. Talking to your GP, talking treatments such as counselling, psychotherapy or cognitive behavioural therapy (also known as CBT) can help you manage symptoms.
Your child’s school can support your child with mild worry in many different ways and help them to identify and implement coping strategies. This could include providing named and trusted staff members that your child knows they can reach out to at school if they are feeling worried during the school day or setting up targeted support programmes.
Some specific examples of adjustments that schools can implement, if required, are:
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A quiet place in school where your child can retreat to
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Helping your child to develop coping mechanisms
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Finding a break time buddy
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For a temporary period, later arrival times or 1:1 teaching sessions
Heather Hackwood, trust attendance manager at Scholars’ Education Trust, is passionate about supporting parents to gently help their children back into the classroom. She says: “First and foremost, attendance has to be a whole school approach. All staff have a role to play to address attendance from a whole school perspective, actively promoting the link between attendance and attainment.
“Also, we want our students to feel part of the school community and enjoy the social aspect of school – and regular school attendance will enhance this.
“The key for us is to make sure we ask the right questions to try and understand why a student is struggling with school. We can then respond to that in a bespoke way, which we do with various strategies. We’ve had real success in plotting the worries they have against a timeline, from getting up in the morning to going to sleep at night, so we can get a clear picture and try and spot what the recurring patterns could be.
“Once we’ve got all that information, we’ll then say, ‘ok, let’s make a plan together’ and we will create support plans or emotionally based school avoidance plans with the student. An example of this could be a daily check-in with a pre-assigned member of staff, who they can build a trusted relationship with. We know that students feel supported with checks in place, it makes them feel seen and their views valued.
“Other examples of interventions include adaptations to the timetable, a time-out card, mentoring support, meetings with parents/carers, sessions with the school counsellor, a buddy system, lunchtime activities, a regulation space or referral to outside agencies.
“Excellent attendance at school is important to allow our students to fulfil their full potential, enhance life chances for the future, enjoy the social aspect of school, and feel part of the school community.”
Whatever the root cause of your child’s worries about school, you’re not alone – and there’s professional support available to help you to help your child tackle their worries and attend school with confidence. Parents can visit The Education Hub, where they can find a list of resources to help.
