Is there a better way to educate persistently absent kids?

Why are some children persistently absent from school? Why is the number of persistently absent kids rising in Scotland? Is there a better way to educate persistently absent kids than forcing them back into mainstream schooling?

As a teacher - who was once one of those chronically absent kids myself - I have a much more deep-rooted reason for wanting to know the answer to these questions than most. Not all of them I can answer, or answer fully. I have my own anecdotal insights of course, from my own experiences growing up in the mainstream education system here in Scotland. This isn’t just a problem I had back in the 90s and 00s though. It’s been an ongoing problem for many children and young people long before I was at school and it has been so long after I left.

The number of kids missing school persistently is an issue that has only been growing in recent years - particularly since COVID hit – making this an even more pressing issue to consider. How are we going to make sure these children get an education, but one which is not wholly awful or traumatic for them to access? 

(Side note) I think blaming this rise in school absenteeism on the pandemic is also short sighted and an over-simplification, so I just wanted to add an additional note here... For so long, so many children have been struggling in the mainstream educational environment in the UK. When COVID caused us all to be at home during the school day instead of in class, I think it made a lot of young people aware that there are alternatives to what may have been an awful or even traumatic experience for some of them in traditional school environments. That’s not to say mainstream education is awful or traumatic for everyone. It’s not. Many children thrive in it, but many also don’t. Many would thrive in more alternative settings, where they are not in the mainstream. For those who are having a horrendous time of it though, where their needs are not met, who can really blame them for their school avoidance?

The overall persistently absent rate in Scotland in 2023/24 was 31.4% according to the Scottish Government, with persistently absent being defined as individuals who have been absent in a school year for 10% or more of the time, i.e., absent for 19 or more full days in one academic year. When I was a kid, I was absent from school waaay more than 10% of the time, year after year! There were many complicated reasons for this, as there often are with each child who ends up missing a lot of school – something I feel is missed by many politicians and the media... There’s not usually one simple reason why a young person is persistently absent from school. It can be complex.

I think part of my inspiration for writing about this topic is because I can see how many of the barriers that I experienced with mainstream education during my school years still exist today. What is particularly frustrating is that many of those barriers exist around the mainstream educational environment not being suitable for many of the children within its care. For example, the shutting down of many schools for children with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SENDs) is only one of the factors contributing to this. The number of schools for children with SENs in Scotland has gone from 145 in 2014 to 107 in 2024. However, the number of children reporting an additional support need (ASN) has only risen – and it’s risen massively!!

According to Scottish Government data, the number of pupils with ASN such as ASD, Dyslexia or a mental health condition has risen from 20.8% of the school population in 2014 to 40.5% in 2024. Therefore, at the same time the number of children with additional support needs has almost doubled in Scotland, 47 schools for kids that would cater specifically to those needs have been closed. I realise the reason for the closing down of these schools is probably politically complex and related very much to a severe lack of funding in recent years, but where exactly are all the kids who were using these services meant to go? Where are the many more kids now identified with needing more complex help and support meant to attend? Mainstream schools often do not have the staffing, training or resources available to deal with the complexities of the many children who are now being sent to them, who would have previously gone to a SEND school. That’s not to say integrating many children with additional support needs into mainstream educational environments regularly isn’t a good thing. Many studies have highlighted that it can be positive for children and young people to integrate into mainstream educational environments (which I believe was at least in part why the Scottish Government opted in 2000 to introduce a ‘presumption of mainstreaming’ for many children with SEN), but notice the words can be, not is. This can be good for some children. There needs to be the adequate resourcing to support the mainstreaming, or it can actually have the opposing effect, making things worse for all.

It's also important to recognise that traditional school environments were designed for a society that no longer exists. In today’s world, we should be teaching our children how to be adaptable and giving them an ethos that embeds the idea to upskill regularly. We need to do this in order to meet the fast changing needs of both today and the future. How can we do that when our current education system and structures are not flexible or adaptable like the changing world is? Finally, if we are to meet the needs of every child according to the noble GIRFEC principles that every teacher in Scotland is taught to abide by, throwing every child into the same environment - when not every child is the same - and then expecting them to learn, isn’t really realistic. Is there a more hybrid way of learning that gets it right for every child by being systemically adaptable to every child?