BPS welcomes new report on school absence

Produced by the Centre for Mental Health and the Children and Young People's Mental Health Coalition, the report looks at the complex factors that can be behind a child's non-attendance at school, including mental health difficulties and a lack of access to timely and effective mental health support.

Dr Gavin Morgan, chair of the DECP, said:

"As educational psychologists, we regularly work with young people who struggle with their mental health, and know this is often a significant contributing factor when pupils are regularly absent from school.

"We welcome this new report, which chimes with our own experiences and offers tangible solutions to some of the root causes of persistent absence.

"A focus on tackling these issues, including poor mental health, is likely to be far more effective in keeping young people in school than a punitive approach based around fines and sanctions."

Data from NHS Digital suggests a clear link between poor mental health and absence, with children with a mental health problem having been seven times more likely to miss at least 15 days of school during the autumn 2022 term.

The report calls for the Department for Education to introduce a mental health and wellbeing absence code, and set clear and realistic thresholds for its use as part of the revised statutory guidance on school attendance.

As part of a focus on the mental health component of school attendance, the report also suggests improving access to mental health support for those students who need it.

It also calls for a review of disciplinary measures around attendance, with sanctions such as fines not proving to be effective and not taking into account the deep-rooted challenges in a child's life which can lead to persistent absence.