Since the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 9 out of 10 reports marked a significant increase in students missing school due to mental issues.
Headteachers said the government’s intention to increase fines for parents in England will have no impact since the children’s anxiety and mental health are the main causes of their absences from school since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly nine out of 10 secondary school administrators, including attendance officers charged with tackling absences, reported a notable increase in students missing school over the past two years.
According to Lorraine Yates, an assistant principal at the Astrea Yates Academy Trust chain of schools in Yorkshire and Cambridge, children between the ages of 9 and 10 faced the most significant challenges, “as they are the cohorts of young people that was mostly distracted by COVID and were impacted by Sure Start Centers and children centers being closed down.”
She added, “They have lost out on a lot of things from the end of their statutory school age until the beginning of their childhood. It has affected things based, on our academics.” Elaine Harper of the Leigh Academies stated, “More absences are related to mental health than anything else, like term time holidays and other typical causes of absences.”
Over the past 18 months, the economy’s state has worsened the absence situation. Last year, the Department for Education grouped 150,00 students at state schools in England as severely absent, missing over half of the classes, a 150% increase higher than in the figure for 2018-19, which was 60,000 students before the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to research shown in the Guardian by Bromcom, a management service provider for schools, schools are adjusting in response to the rise of mental health issues. Some are renaming traditional medical or sick rooms “attendance support rooms” to assist students in returning to the classroom rather than sending them home.
Some schools use data from attendance software to monitor which lessons and subjects cause particular students to feel uncomfortable so that students can anticipate and encourage them back to class.
According to feedback from 500 schools, parents are now “unduly cautious” about taking their kids away for whole weeks at a time rather than one or two days. The report noted that schools acknowledge that there will be genuine cases of students experiencing anxiety, but they are not qualified to determine whether it is genuine.
If a parent calls a doctor to request an appointment, they might be lucky enough to have a phone conversation; otherwise, overworked doctors would feel it would be more convenient to diagnose anxiety. When parents find it difficult to schedule a visit, they frequently decide to keep their children home from school.
According to Janice Bowling of the Greenshaw Learning Trust, a multi-academy company trust with 30 schools in southern England, there has been an increase in parent’s willingness to take term-time vacations: the strong collaboration between the family and schools has weakened significantly after COVID-19.
More than 75% of school leaders said that the DfE’s proposal to raise fines for parents taking children out of school from £20 to £80 was unlikely to have any impact. According to a report, the fine is trivial compared to the potential savings during less popular holiday time, coupled with families’ financial hardships.
