Anxiety and poor mental health exacerbated by the pandemic is a key driver behind the school absence crisis, a programme supporting students to return to the classroom has found.
The number of children missing school remains high compared to pre-pandemic levels, with recent government statistics showing 20 per cent of pupils were persistently absent – missing 10 per cent of sessions or more – in the past year.
This is up from 2018/19 when 10.9 per cent were persistently absent. In total, children lost 11.5 million days of learning in the autumn term last year, research from think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated.
One mother said her 11-year-old son started worrying about the amount of oxygen in a room after the pandemic hit, while another child struggled to adjust back to normal life after lockdown.
A pilot programme run by charity Barnado’s, and commissioned by the Department for Education, has been working with families to get children back to school.
The scheme, which began in September 2023, is running across five areas in the north of England, in Middlesbrough, Doncaster, Stoke, Salford and Norsley. It will now be expanded across the country to reach 10,000 more children in 10 new areas, including Ipswich and Blackpool.
Under the programme, families are given attendance mentors who meet up with the children at home or school to work through why they are missing classes.
Of the 671 children referred into the programme, 66 per cent – or around 440 children – said mental health and anxiety was a key barrier to them attending school, findings shared with The Independent show.
Staff are worried that Covid has had a much more lasting impact on children than is widely recognised, with the damage still being felt five years on.
Alex Tinkler, the lead mentor in Middlesbrough who supports 20 families, said undiagnosed mental health issues and special educational needs issues, such as children on waiting lists for ADHD, dyslexia, or dyspraxia, was having a big impact on families. “They might be suspended, or being disruptive, because they can’t manage their emotions and feelings. While they’re waiting for diagnosis, they don’t have the right learning plans and schools are struggling to support them,” he said.
Mr Tinkler added post-Covid anxiety was a “massive issue”, with children still struggling to deal with the change of environment after the lifting of lockdowns.
One mother with an 11-year-old on the scheme said: “You want a child to be carefree and not worrying when they’re five or six. Suddenly, after Covid hit, he was panicking about the amount of oxygen in a room, how much air there was when we were on the bus, how much air was coming under the door and circulating in school assembly.
“He was having panic attacks and still struggles with his anxiety to this day – I know how much of an impact Covid had on him”.
Another mother, with a 11-year-old daughter, said her child had problems adjusting back to normal life after lockdown.
She said: “[My daughter] actually loved the lockdown, which sounds strange to say. She was only six and suddenly we were home together every day, doing bits of school work but also out in the garden, playing games.
“She was very nervous when things started to open up again. She started having panic attacks if we went to a restaurant, which we’d never seen with her before. Now, she doesn’t talk about Covid directly but she often gets really upset and says she ‘wishes she could be little again’.
“We know that by saying that, she means she wishes she could go back to the time when we were all together. It’s devastating as a parent. This is having a huge impact on her entire life.”
Sunday marks the five year anniversary of the first national lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic and former children’s commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield said that the impact “is still holding back the life chances of too many children”.
She added: “We can see it now in the number of children born during the pandemic arriving at school without the development skills they need to learn, the unacceptable numbers of children living in poverty, the widening educational attainment gap, the rise in school absence and school exclusions, and the deeply worrying crisis in children and young people’s mental health.”
Mr Tinkler added that bullying was also preventing children from going into school, with messages and the fall out from fights following students home on apps such as Snapchat.
He explained that parents or guardians often need to be educated by the mentors on how to restrict use of social media for their children, adding: “Some young people are staying up to four or five in the morning, scrolling TikTok endlessly, and that really impacts their mental health and school attendance.”
Cost-of-living pressures are also impacting families, some of whom can’t afford to buy their children new uniforms or school shoes, he added. Other families have two or three children in one bed – disrupting their sleep and ability to concentrate in class.
Of the children they have worked with, some have missed up to 50 per cent of their classes, but in the 12 to 20 weeks of the mentorship significant progress can be made, Mr Tinkler said. Some children have gone from four per cent attendance rates to 96 per cent.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Tackling this issue is everyone’s responsibility – government, schools, parents, and children – and we need a national effort to get our kids back in the classroom. We have made some encouraging progress this academic year, but more must be done and this month we have brought together ministers and over 2,000 school leaders up and down the country to share best practice to drive up attendance.”
