If students avoid school out of fear, the system needs to change | Letters
Persistent school absenteeism has become a topic of increasing concern in education (almost a third of British secondary school students avoid school due to anxiety, research shows, February 2). The response to that omission continues to focus on children and young people changing their attitudes and behavior to better fit into the education system, with cognitive behavioral therapy proposed as one solution.
The Education Commission found in 2023 that a key reason large numbers of children had not returned to school post-Covid was the barriers to participation posed by poverty. Absenteeism, like exclusions, is a matter of race and class. As Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, says in her response to the ongoing absenteeism investigation: “Children are not absent from school because they do not want to learn. They are desperate to learn, but every day thousands of children find themselves without the support they need to get an education and go to school.”
Unfortunately, the strict discipline, excessive rules, fixed daily schedule and practice-oriented education in predominantly working-class schools have had a further deterrent effect. The result, as the article points out, is that more and more children and young people are experiencing “extreme anxiety or stress when they go to school.” It is the education system that needs to change. Schools should be more welcoming and supportive, especially for those young people who are predominantly working class and ethnically diverse and who lack the resources to make success in education more than an unlikely possibility.
Prof. Diane Reay
University of Cambridge
Therapists who gather around distressed students undoubtedly mean well. Yet they often treat the symptoms, not the causes, and position the problems in young individuals rather than adult systems, exacerbating the problems.
When so many young people avoid school out of fear, like canaries in coal mines, they warn that many schools are damaging mental health – by punishing failure to learn and enforcing petty rules and detentions, isolation rooms and exclusions. Ofsted bullies teachers, who often feel compelled to bully students, who, unsurprisingly, often bully peers, in a pyramid of fear and coercive control.
This reflects the transfer of blame from the Post Office to individual Post Office operators, making costly use of monitoring professionals (inspectors, police, lawyers, etc.). Here the students are blamed and the precious professionals supporting the system include social workers, doctors, therapists and police. The Children’s Manifesto published by The Guardian in 2011, and many good schools, show how the most important work can be achieved: preventing distress and working with children and young people to promote ways of living and learning together.
Prof. Priscilla Alderson
Institute of Education, UCL
The latest research from the charity Stem4 shows that poor mental health is the leading cause of absenteeism. In all the discussions about possible contributing factors, I have seen no mention of the role of the current unprecedented level of authoritarianism in British schools.
Strict enforcement of uniforms, punishments for breaches of draconian rules and the liberal use of isolation and exclusion have created a harsh culture in many schools. When the rigid and limited curriculum – with reduced opportunities for creativity – and endless testing are added to students’ experiences, it is not surprising that they become concerned. Such a culture is anti-educational and anti-learning.
Dr. Lorna Chessum
Former Senior Lecturer in Education, Brighton