Daughter struggling to attend school, EW potentially pursuing prosecution

My son is 9, does 2 hours a day due to extreme anxiety, asd, pda, sensory processing and the LA Saying he doesn't require specialist school. 

If the attendance officers would like to come to our house in the morning and get him up and ready they are welcome.

Hi just read your story same as mine we’ve struggles with my son for years he’s now 15 and very difficult age now,we’ve also had regardless meetings and attendance low had a court warning if don’t attended. In a month just had a diagnosis that he has autism which is great thought be easier now school will help more but no!,,,There saying they got all in place for him so would like to apply for the EHCP which if did get this want have this till he finishes school. We are at our wits end. You can’t force them as my son then has meltdowns and start ripping he’s clothes,we got to go work so can’t cope with this in the morning trying get them to school.

I think is totally wrong if a child has a diagnosis to take us parents to court because they’re different and can’t cope it’s so wrong! Makes me mad I feel your pain! We were pushed under the carpet for years relentless meetings after meetings. Sending love.xx just knowing who to go to there’s no sopport. 

In case it's of any help here are some things we're trying with my daughter (7) going to school:

1. She can enter school through the main doors rather than the gate and is accompanied to her classroom by a grown-up.

2. She is allowed a small soft toy with her in the classroom which she keeps on her lap or on the table.

3. She has daily sessions with the Pastoral person - 30 mins on one day and short 10-15 min sessions on other days.

4. She is not pressured to finish a piece of work in class - not being able to finish things upsets her.

5. She is allowed to not strictly conform to uniform - she wears leggings and trainers instead of trousers/ skirt and shoes.

6. We have been given a timetable for activities each day so that we can talk about what will be happening at school in advance.

7. She wears ear defenders when needed, e.g. lunch hall, due to noise sensitivity.

8. She currently does very short days: 1-1.5 hrs most days, bit more on the day she has longer pastoral session.  This has only been happening for a couple of weeks though.

If it's any consolation it has taken me a long while to get to the stage of these things being agreed with/ offered by school.  We have already been reported to the local authority for her absence which I found hugely unhelpful.  No come back from that so far though.

Thank you for this, very helpful. :)

The Education Welfare Officer cannot block an EHCP request - as a parent you make a request in writing to the local education authority, and if they decline you can go to the SEN and Disability Tribunal.  However, the education psychologist might claim that they cannot assess your child if they are not in school.

The SENDCo's "boss" is the Head Teacher, but the SENDCo is also an independent professional with a legally defined role. Every state school has a named governor for SEND, and if you have complained to the Head Teacher and not got a satisfactory response, you can write to the Chair of Governors or named SEN Governor. A recorded letter marked "private and confidential" to the school address, or " Chair of Governors, XYZ School, c/o Head of Governor Services. ABC Education Authority ... " should get through. By law, every state school must publish details of the governors, the SEND policy and other information on the web site.

The Education Welfare Officer is an employee of the LEA, not the school. They must inform you of the complaints procedure on request, but if there is a problem write to the Director of Education at the local authority. Failure to provide details of how to complain is in itself a disciplinary matter. You can ask for an advocate to assist you make the complaint, or to make a complaint orally. Do not be fobbed off with being told you must fill in a form.

I strongly suggest that you get advice from NAS or https://www.ipsea.org.uk or see if a firm of education law specialists will offer you a free interview to see if you have a case.

For a prosecution under s.444 of Education Act 1996 there is a defence in s.(2A) "The child shall not be taken to have failed to attend regularly at the school by reason of his absence from the school at any time if the parent proves that at that time the child was prevented from attending by reason of sickness or any unavoidable cause.]"  If you get threats of prosecution or a Fixed Penalty Notice, see a solicitor. Take advice before paying a FPN, because that means you admit to committing an offence. If you are interviewed under PACE Caution you may have a solicitor present, and should be entitled to get one on legal aid.

You might also want to talk to your local councillor. With local elections coming up this might be an opportune time!

Sorry for being slow to reply, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response. I'm still a little concerned at the lack of EHCP to be honest, although things are looking more positive now. It's still in the back of my mind though, we'll definitely start pushing for one again if we start to feel like we're running out of options again. Thank you for sharing your story, I hope your son continues to get some positives!

Thank you; if things start to go downhill again, that's definitely something we'll look at. :)

It’s fascinating to hear about your son’s story. So many aspects of it connect my son’s situation. I totally agree about wishing you’d followed your gut instinct - I wish I had too. The thing is we are learning as we go and so often don’t have the confidence early on to go against what schools are telling us. I remember my son’s Primary school staff and Ed. psychs telling us “there’s not much point trying to get an EHCP - it wouldn’t make much difference” - which was absolute rubbish! I didn’t even have access to the internet when my son started school so researching these things myself was very difficult. 

I’m so glad that your son has got things back on track now with his education - I hope Uni goes well for him. 

Hi - so sorry to hear of your daughters struggles - it sounds very familiar and I sympathise - it is so stressful and exhausting to go through for everyone.  

For someone to suggest to you that there is no point in an EHCP due to poor school attendance is crazy and wrong - the EHCP should be helping to provide education that is accessible.  If the child can't access education at school then the provision should be for EOTAS (Education Otherwise Than At School) that they can access.  This is what we were awarded but we had to go to tribunal to get it.  We used video as evidence to show the extreme trauma our son experienced in trying to attend school - but we had to film it ourselves as the school were not allowed to, so we filmed with the SENCO in attendance and the school gave evidence to the tribunal to support that our son  could not access education at school and that it wasn't reasonable to expect him or the school to manage the situation.  We were awarded an EHCP  to help with homeschooling and some mental health support.

We too waited for schools to sort out EHCP provision, but with hindsight, we should have made our own application for an EHCP straight away without waiting for the school to get round to it, and then appealed the inevitable refusal and gone sraight to tribunal.  We were daunted by the idea of tribunal but having done it once would definitely do so again.  

I can't offer any easy solutions but here is our experience.  Our son (autistic with selective mutism), having never found school easy or a good fit,  crashed out of school in year 7 as puberty loomed, and never really managed to get back in again.   I'm sure this isn't what you will want to hear but there is good news - after years of bumbling along feeling our way without having a clue, and finding everything an uphill battle, we have now started to come out of the woods and our son has found his mojo and even applied to university and actually wants to go.  How that will all work out is another matter but at least it promises the start of a new journey and allows him to experience a bit of success for a while...

Initially after crashing out in year 7 he was so depressd and anxious he couldn't manage much so he was totally out of school, to the extent of not even having a school place to try to go to. He did a bit of art and some coding as that is what he loves and is good at.  He also played an awful lot of computer games which we really worried about, but he found a supportive online friendship group which has actually really helped.  Also computing is 'his thing' and what he wants to study and the field he hopes to work in one day.  After a while of 'no pressure to perform' he relaxed and was able to re-engage a bit.

For a few terms of years 8/9 he managed at a special needs school and enjoyed having some company but was bored and not engaged.  We hoped the school would help us get an EHCP - but they didn't even attempt it. In hindsight if we could have found some sort of community engagement to provide some company for him, homeschooling would have been just as good an option as the SEN school and a lot cheaper as we had to self fund.

He managed a couple of terms at a mainstream scool in year 10.  We went this route thinking it would help get an EHCP.  Wrong!  The school took three terms to apply for an EHCP and didn't even have him on the SEN register which we were slow to pick up on...  He  struggled in group lessons for subjects that he finds difficult such as english language as his expressive language is weak, and subjects with project and group based work as his executive funtion is poor.  He ended up having quite severe mental health issues and becoming a full blown school refuser again and back at 'square one' re mental health - in fact it was worse teh second time around - so for us not a good decision to try to re-engage with mainstream.

Our exerience is the same as others have posted - that 'strategies' and pressure to attend school didn't work and just made things much worse and made him feel like a failure.  All the school failures traumatised him, and I wish we'd found the courage sooner to pull him out, take all the pressure off, and keep him out.  We have friends with autistic kids who managed school ok but our son struggled a lot with 'demand pressure / presure to perform' and school did him no favours at all.

As with your daughter, our son has never been able to explain in words what isn't working and what is causing his anxiety, and I dont think he ever will be able to voice his feelings very well.  Sometimes when he was younger I could get him to draw pictures to ilustrate his distress which helped me understand a bit.  Now he might use a very brief text message, but usually just hopes I will 'guess' correctly!  Professionals kept telling us to just find what he was good at and let him excel at that - which we listened to but didn't really hear and continued to worry about getting GCSEs and A levels and following the 'traditional' education path as we thought this was the best route to independence in the long term.  With hind sight I wish we could have relaxed about the academics more - as a previous poster has said, you can catch up on academics easily enough but recovery from mental health issues is so hard and slow and the effects of the trauma of school 'failures' are long lasting. 

So anyway, we limped through GCSEs with no school attendance throughout year 11 at all.  and ended up late in the day using online tuition to catch up which worked surpisingly well for subjects that suited (in our case maths and sciences) as the camera was off and communication was via instant messaging, and all lessons were recorded so could be replayed / caught up on later.  We used Academy21 which is designed for local authorities to use for kids exclued from / out of school.  He managed to get a few GCSEs which had to be supervised at home becasue of mental health. 

He had to start A levels online due to Covid - but found that actually helped because the camera could be off to share documents and also instant messaging as an alternative to speaking was an option.   Instant messaging was a life saver too when there were issues with a particular teacher and our son reverted to being mute.  A levels have been easier than GCSEs as he has been able to choose all the subjects and specialise in what he is interested in. He has now gained sufficiently in confidence to attend a (very) small but mainstream tuition college for A levels, has attended university open days, applied to university and is even excited about going - something which even 6 months ago we never dreamed possible.  He is a year or so behind his peers but taking an alternative and slower route seems to be coming through for him - whether he will manage university is entirely another matter.  He does though now at least believe he has a good chance of getting his A levels this year or next and wants to give university a go even if it takes another year or so of preparation - and more importantly, now that he has been offered a place at university he no longer feels a complete failure.

The only thing that has worked for us has been to go with our gut feeling - and we have been slow to trust this - I wish we had been braver sooner.  And we are still learning - no doubt university and the world of work will be another test...  Good luck in your journey with your daughter.

Get a advocate like “family voice” involved to deal with the school. 

Thank you for this, I think it's really valuable to get insight from somebody with first-hand experience. As you say, your experience wasn't a precise match for our daughter's, but it was similar enough to give us something to think about.

I'm so sorry to hear about your mother, but I'm glad to hear that things eventually got better for you. Thank you again, wishing you all the best.

Sorry for the late reply and long post but I hope it's helpful. I have tried to cut it down to length a bit but this I had a lot of thoughts I wanted to share. If you have any questions or want any more details I'm happy to answer. 

I'm autistic and I was a 'school refuser' from the ages of around 11-14. For those years I missed around 40-50% of school days due to anxiety and panic attacks. My circumstances were different to your daughter's but maybe it would be helpful for me to tell you a bit about my experience anyway and give my input as well. 

I had very few issues at school until the transition to secondary school. Any kind of transition in school creates the potential for anxiety. In this instance I had a much bigger problem; shortly before secondary school my mother was hospitalised with cancer. Sadly she died a few months into my first year. After that I started experiencing panic attacks on an almost daily basis. I couldn't understand why I was so anxious at the time. In hindsight I guess the crux of it is that my mother had been my 'safety anchor' (or 'secure attachment'). When she died it felt like nothing was keeping me feeling safe and grounded anymore. I felt like I just couldn't cope with even small changes or challenges in my everyday life. That feeling of being unable to cope ended up fixating on school.

However at that age I couldn't have told you what exactly was making me anxious. I wanted to communicate and did my best to explain my feelings. Even so I couldn't communicate because I just didn't understand my own feelings at all. Like many (most?) autistic people I am alexithymic which means I struggle to identify, describe, and explain my emotions. In other words for almost my entire life I do not intuitively understand my feelings and struggle to access them or find the words for them. I had to consciously learn almost everything there is to know about emotions. When a counsellor asked me questions such as, "How did you feel about that?" I simply was not able to answer. If I said, "I don't know," or "Nothing," they seemed to disbelieve me and thought I was hiding my feelings. Over time I learned to simply tell them whatever I thought they expected to hear. In truth I really did not know the answer. To begin with I didn't even know that I was experiencing anxiety. From my point of view I just felt like something was wrong with my body. I struggled to figure out that I was afraid because I didn't see why I would be afraid. I struggled to make sense of my experiences on a very basic level. Sometimes I wondered if I was some kind of juvenile delinquent truant who was just making excuses to skive off. About a year into having regular panic attacks I learned the terms 'anxiety', 'anxiety disorder', 'panic attacks', 'school refusal', and 'school phobia' from the internet (nobody told me). It drastically changed my outlook to have vocabulary and a framework for understanding what I was going through, as well as the knowledge that I wasn't alone and that it wasn't my fault.

Your daughter would probably really like to tell you what's making her anxious, but in all likelihood she doesn't really know. It's kind of like asking an 8-year-old with a cold to explain what is making them sick. She probably does not have the level of knowledge that she needs to explain how her mental illness works She's likely to need help identifying what her feelings are and why she's feeling that way. Struggling to communicate might make her feel frustrated or helpless. She might worry that something is wrong with her or that she is doing something wrong. Try to give her the opportunity to talk to you about what's wrong when she would like to communicate, but don't create pressure for her to explain her emotions. Reassure her that it's OK to simply have feelings and acknowledge and validate those feelings without creating the expectation that she has to explain, understand, or justify them. Over time she will learn to understand and articulate her feelings better but it doesn't have to happen right away.

I think the reason my anxiety ended up fixating on school in particular was a couple of main reasons: First of all it's difficult to cope with change, especially when you're autistic. I was going through a transitional period going back to school. I was also going through puberty (which was a nightmare in its own right for other reasons but I digress). Secondly there was a huge amount of pressure surrounding school. For your daughter the transitional period of going back to school after lockdown has likely been very difficult. 

A lot of children have been finding it difficult to return and feel anxious now that schools have re-opened, especially since the pandemic is still going on. I would probably be feeling anxious in her position as well. It's a huge change to her routine that comes with a massive amount of stimulation and demands that she is not accustomed to. She no longer has easy access to the safety of her home environment. She is likely to be soaking up the tension other people are feeling. She may be worried about getting sick with Covid. Anxiety can also make you feel physically sick which can add to the anxiety. She is probably feeling like she's under a huge amount of pressure right now. There are many very understandable reasons why she might be feeling anxious.

Also while I was looking for those other links I found this document which has a breakdown of ways to intervene with a child struggling with emotionally-based school avoidance post-lockdown that might be helpful for you.

The most helpful accommodation my school offered was that I felt overwhelmed at school I was allowed to leave class and go sit in the welfare officer's office for a while. I would usually work there quietly by myself but also we would talk about how I was feeling and she would try to find ways to support me. It wasn't much but it gave me a sense that I had a safe place to go to. Unfortunately the school wasn't willing to make certain accommodations. For example they still punished late attendance and late homework. So if I was going to be late for school or hadn't finished homework on time I usually ended up missing school because of fear of punishment. Also in year 9 the school and local authorities started applying more pressure on me and my dad for me to attend more regularly. I think the last straw was that the welfare officer started pressuring me too. I can't remember exactly what she said but it was something like, "Hasn't this gone on long enough?" and after that I just really didn't feel safe at school anymore. I stopped going to school for around a month continuously. At that point dad my decided to remove me from school.

My dad didn't have time or money to really home-school me properly but he paid a tutor to teach me for four hours per week. Otherwise I was left to my own devices. It was not a good situation. However it gave me a much-needed break from the constant strain that was being put on my nervous system. It gave me time to rest and recuperate. A year later I went back to school and I attended almost every day going forward. 

Even positive interventions to encourage school attendance, such as rewards, can backfire by emphasising the importance of school attendance, which in turn creates pressure. The pressure adds to the anxiety and damages self-esteem. It may make her feel like she is failing to do something that's really important. Try to ease the pressure and relax expectations. Put school into perspective as being only one part of life and not the most important thing. Encourage her to prioritise other things, primarily enjoying her life, as well as pursuing her own independent learning and exploring her interests in her own time and in a way that she feels comfortable with. I really wish that at that age I had not had it drilled into me that school was the most important thing. I wish I had been given permission and encouragement to enjoy myself and pursue other things on days that I didn't attend school.

It's much easier to compensate for school absence than it is to recover from mental health issues. When I ultimately went back to school I made up for lost time pretty quickly. I had best GCSEs in my year 11 cohort. I did very well in my A levels and university as well. I'm not trying to be a braggart, just trying to make the point and offer some reassurance that it's still possible to do succeed academically after missing a lot of school.

I think that pretty much covers most of what I wanted to say. I imagine a lot of it is probably irrelevant but I hope at least some of it is useful. Happy to answer questions.

Thanks :) Sending you best wishes to you and your daughter too. It’s very painful and stressful - but I’m sure you and your daughter will find your way through. It’s so hard to watch your child struggle in this way, School can be such a difficult environment for autistic children. Good luck

Thanks for the suggestions. Our most recent meeting was surprisingly positive; it's a long road, but things are looking slightly better than they did a few days ago 

I'm glad your son is communicative, I hope this helps his situation improve.

Our daughter's mental health has always been our highest priority in this situation, which is why she has low attendance rather than being forced into the building every day. 

You're right to identify it as a mental health issue above all else, something that we have finally managed to communicate in the latest meeting. In fact, things are starting to look more positive. Thank you for your insight, I hope that things improve for your son.

Hi, my son is 20 now and at a college and currently not able to attend. He also had times when at school when he could not go in due to his anxiety. He’s autistic and also has selective mutism. I have autism too. In our experience if the more you try to pressure someone with school phobia into going in to school the more they panic. Pressure doesn’t work - wherever it’s coming from. My priority is my son’s mental health. Have you heard of ‘Autistic Burnout’? If not I would recommend googling it. I would recommend removing all pressure from your child to attend and making it clear to them that you support them, that their well being is your priority and that you will make sure they have time to rest and recover and will only have to return to school when they feel well enough to do that. Also explain that when they return it will be done in a staged and gradual way that they feel comfortable.

Your child’s mental health should always be the priority. Keep the lines of communication with the school etc open and make it clear that this is a mental health crisis - it’s not an attendance issue - it’s a mental health issue. If attending school is damaging your child’s mental health then the school needs to acknowledge that and be supportive. 

Hello, I am sorry to hear about your daughter's struggles. It must be hard for her and I know for sure it is for you and your wife. I am in a similar situation. My son is 7 and refusing to go to school again. He is able to tell us what bothers him and we are now waiting for the Senco to have a meeting and discuss all that is going on. He has an Ehcp but we are not sure school is following it (that is another story). I have no advice for strategies to convince our little ones.. They do not work with my boy anyway. Maybe you should ask your school to change their accommodations as that's clearly not working. Also, I do not know where you are but there are places where you can get advice regarding Ehcp like Sendiass or IPSEA. And I am pretty sure that you can ask for and assessment for an Ehcp to your local authority if school does not want to.

I hope this helps. Good luck. 

Thank you, just hearing about somebody in a similar situation is a small comfort! It sounds like you've been handling the situation very well, I hope you get a satisfying resolution.

Hi 

I'm not sure I have any good advice, just wanted to say that I am in a similar position with my 13 year old daughter who has severe anxiety and is no longer in school at all. 

I have been worried about prosecution, but it hasn't come to this, and I am not sure what has made the difference in our case, because the pressure for her to be in school from the school has been constant, and it has been difficult to work through this. It makes me very angry, our situation and reading posts like yours because for adults, we can go to the doctor and ask for a sick note which explains we are struggling with anxiety and can get 'signed off' or ask for adjustments at work to support our mental health. The system doesn't work like this for children and it makes me very angry. I really feel for you. I have had to learn to stop trying to get my daughter into school - for her safety i need to take the pressure off. 

If it helps at all, I sent a constant stream of updates to the school on email to explain the measures i had been taking to try and get her into school and to evidence the difficulties we were experiencing at home, on the way to school and at school. I was sure to explain the serious impact on her mental health of applying pressure, of the fact that it was impacting on my job (I went part time) on my husband, and his work, on my other children. I copied in the wellbeing officer, the additional learning needs officer, the head, the youth worker, the counsellor, and any replies only to me, I forwarded back to everyone. I am in Wales, and i also got advice from a charity in Wales that supports parents and carers of children with ALNs, and they got a solicitor to talk to me to give me the full breadth of our rights and what we can ask for including the right legal language to use with the school. i then organised a meeting with the school and read out a pre-prepared script about it using the legal advice, which I also then sent on email. I also got the counsellor from CAHMS to back up on email to the whole group, the serious risks to her mental health if pressure to be in school was applied. 

You may well have tried all of these, apologies, and of course I am in Wales so there will likely be some differences in approach. 

I wish you luck, as this is an awful position to be in. The wellbeing of your child is paramount, and the system is only designed to add pressure to you as a parent and not support you right now. That sucks and is totally and utterly wrong. 

Best wishes and sending a hug if ok 

Robin