School's out

It is seven o'clock on a Wednesday morning. A mother enters her child's bedroom to wake him up for school. His nose is red and running; then he starts to splutter and cough. Does she send him in?

According to the latest UK government advice, the answer is yes. Britain's NHSThe National Health Service, the publicly funded healthcare system in the UK. The NHS was founded in 1948. says that it is "fine" to send children to school with sore throats, coughs and colds.

The advice is part of a government campaign to improve school attendance. Called Moments Matter, Attendance Counts, it aims to bring down cases of avoidable absence from school.¹

Figures released last autumn show that 21.2% of pupils in England were "persistently absent", meaning they missed more than one in ten days of school. Furthermore, 140,000 pupils were "severely absent", meaning they missed school more than half of the time.²

For many, absent pupils are caused by a lack of education funding. Cuts mean that schools are struggling to help pupils with mental health problems or learning difficulties.

Others argue that parents are the real problem. In 2023, a record 350,000 parents were fined for taking their children out of class for holidays during term time.

Journalist and teacher Kristina Murkett warns that keeping children at home because they do not enjoy school could make things worse. We might just "over-medicaliseTreat something as a medical problem. and over-analyse normal childhood worries".³

But, according to the mental health charity Mind, seven out of ten pupils reported being absent from school because of anxietyA feeling of unease or worry. It can be mild or very severe. or stress.⁴ The lockdown may have made this worse, as the number of "severely absent" pupils has doubled since before the pandemic.

Finding a solution to the problem of pupil absences will benefit everyone. As respected Oxford academic Professor Cathy Creswell argues: "InvestingPutting money into something in the hope of future returns. in children and families is investing in everybody's future." 

Is it the system that's wrong?

Yes: Cuts to funding mean that schools can no longer support pupils with educational or mental health needs. No wonder the children prefer to stay at home.

No: There are plenty of reasons why a child might not want to attend school, but parents have a responsibility to make sure they go to class unless they are seriously ill.

Or... The high levels of absence from class have many causes and it is a mistake to blame just parents, schools, the pandemic or even children themselves.