School attendance, and the other side of the same coin, school refusal / school avoidance, are increasingly discussed in the news, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.
The statistics are startling. As reported recently by Gaby Hinsliff in the Guardian, basing her figures on Department for Education data:
“Persistent absence, defined as missing more than 10% of lessons, more than doubled from 8% of primary and 13.7% of secondary school children pre-Covid across England to 17% and 28% respectively in 2022-2023.”
Why and how are children and adolescents avoiding school today in such high numbers? How do we understand the problem, and how do we resolve it?