Post pandemic, there has never been so many children who have significant anxiety and who are avoiding school. The longer some of these children are off, the harder it may be for them to come back. I hope some of these strategies will be useful whatever the individual child’s situation.

Remember last year, when you spent a significant amount of time and effort trying to coax your school avoider Ryan back to school? You thought you were gradually getting somewhere when suddenly the school closed. Ryan gets exactly what he wants and you are back to square one. Similarly, you may now have children who have become a little agoraphobic over the last few year or so – they may also be reluctant returners (hopefully this group will just need a bit of gentle coaxing rather that a more structured approach).  I feel your frustration. Here are eight ideas to go some way in helping Ryan and any other school avoider back to school. 

Re-frame your mindset – For me this has been a journey, evolving over my teaching career. Starting from the perspective of, ‘why don’t her parents make her come in?’, and finishing with, ‘I can see that she has high levels of anxiety, what can we as a school do to support with that?’ Children don’t just wake up one day and refuse to come in, there is a lot going on in the background. Underlying causes may include SEND such as autism or sensory issues. There may be high anxiety levels or indeed no obvious reason on the surface. It’s time to ramp up the empathy so that you can really start to understand what is going on. 

Develop a relationship with the family – A key adult in your school such as a family liaison officer, SENCo or an adult that the child responds well to should pursue regular contact with the family several times a week. They need to know you are on their side and fighting their corner. This also includes leaving your opinions about parenting and family circumstances at the door (unless social intervention is needed or safeguarding is an issue), so that you can focus on the child’s needs. This information and video from Young Minds: https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/for-parents/parents-guide-to-support-a-z/parents-guide-to-support-school-refusal/ may be useful for them.

Individual barriers – Get to the bottom of the specific barriers facing an individual. For example in the current climate, children may be overly anxious about cleanliness and germs which is a barrier to leaving the house and returning to school. There may be a vast difference in perceived and actual risk and the media has been guilty of sensationalising a variety of issues recently which easily filter down to children. It may be worth asking families to be mindful of the news materials or adult conversations which their children are accessing as many may be hearing too much (please note that I’m not advocating that it is either unsafe or safe to leave the house, individual families will decide for themselves). Some of the child’s barriers may not even be things that non-anxious people would consider to be an issue, particularly if the child has additional needs. They may hate eating in a busy dining hall for example, which would take anxiety to heightened levels. As far as possible, remove the barriers or at least meet the child half way. Could they eat somewhere else at least in the short term? Other barriers may be an anxiety about leaving a sick parent or pet. Issues with separation anxiety can be supported by the parent providing the child with a photo of them or something special to look after during the school day.

Work with other agencies – It may be that there is already a social worker involved or an organisation such as CAMHS: https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/your-guide-to-support/guide-to-camhs/ There may even be a volunteer mentoring service in your area. Tap into as many external resources as you can and have regular team around the child meetings with professionals and parents to support the family. Has the family sought help from the GP or been referred to a paediatrician? If not, it may be that your SENCo could provide a cover letter outlining key behaviour observed to get the ball rolling. 

Home learning – Consider setting some home learning. Nothing that becomes too arduous for setting and marking – just something that send the message to the child that school cares about their learning and are worried that they are missing it. Perhaps a project on their favourite animal. Could they email work in for encouragement and praise? I suspect there is plenty of home learning going on in your school at the moment anyway! 

Start transition back to school – It is imperative that this is well planned and needs to be done sensitively, The following are some good practice led ideas:

• A clear timetable agreed by school, family and child. Day 1 may be as simple as trying on school uniform, day 2 getting in the car and driving to the front gate, day 3 getting to school and walking to the front door, day 4 going in the main office and saying hello to the office staff etc. etc. It may not need to be this gradual, but the more gradual the transition, the more likely you’ll have success. 
• Once back through the door, consider their morning routine. Can they come in a different door and at a different time to avoid the rush? Can they have a key adult to greet and settle them in? A part time timetable would be appropriate which needs reviewing weekly to decide whether to increase or decrease hours. 
• Consider classroom amendments. They will need a safe space to retreat to if they are feeling wobbly, opportunities for brain breaks and potentially tasks lower than their ability to build up confidence. They may find a personalised visual timetable or ‘now and next’ board useful.
• Use a home school communication book to share what has happened – remember plenty of positives!

Get them on the SEND register – Even if they are at age related expectations or above, they clearly have underlying SEMH and will have missed a chunk of the curriculum (before the schools shut). Ensure moving forward, that they have a one plan with targets around socialisation and managing anxiety. Consider what regular provision and intervention you can provide even if it is just a regular ‘check in’ with a key adult of their choice. A one plan will also be helpful to send to paediatricians and specialist teachers if required, as well as providing much needed evidence when potentially applying for EHC assessment if the issue is long term.

Anxiety based behaviours  – Don’t spend too much time trying to analyse how much of the child’s behaviour is actual anxiety versus the child pre-empting the anxiety and therefore not attempting to engage anyway.  Regardless of the behaviours displayed, the feelings around them are very real to the child. I have tried to re-frame my thinking from the label ‘attention seeking behaviour’ to ‘attention needing behaviour’ this helps me to remember that all attention needs have an underlying reason which we may or may not understand. It all stems from an anxiety. The child wants to stop feeling anxious and the child may use behaviour that appears manipulative to get their own way. For example, if they prefer working in isolation, when they eventually get back to school, they may replicate behaviours to obtain that desired result e.g. disruptive behaviour or a sudden stomach ache. It’s a conflicting situation. Moving forward, you want to reintegrate the child fully into class but also want to reduce anxiety and support their wellbeing. A lot of professional judgement is needed and even then you won’t get the balance right. Trial and error may be the only way forward. When using this approach, it is important to keep a senior colleague in the loop with strategies tried as well as document them for other adults to refer to. Also for pupils with needs such as ASD, there may be a simple fix e.g. He won’t come in on PE days. A reasonable adjustment might be to consider how else he can meet the PE objectives or if the actual issue is getting changed for example, let him wear a PE all day.

It is also worth remembering that legally, your LA should be involved after 15 days so please ensure that you are keeping them informed. They may also have useful resources such as Engagement Facilitators that you can tap into.

This list of strategies is not exhaustive and there may be other strategies which have worked for you. If you have a strategy to share, please could you add it in the comments section. School refusers can be difficult to support and engage in many instances so don’t be disheartened if it you don’t make as much progress as quickly as you would like.

Thanks for reading

Lynn How 4/6/20 updated 24/1/22