Hi Everyone
I'm new here and I'm looking for some advice. My 15 year old daughter has not attended school since October 2025. She suffers from anxiety which is quite severe but honestly she has struggled to maintain attendance out with this latest absence so this has been something she's struggled with she was in primary school. Her diagnosis was finally received after she had just started high school so its been fairly new. I assumed her anxiety was based on the environment of school but recently, as in last Thursday, she finally opened up to me about what she experiences in school and it broke my heart. She experiences complete isolation. She is very quite but she makes an effort to talk but it never goes beyond that to develop into friendships. Her peers don't interact with her, going as far to remove the chair from next to her to sit with others leaving her on her own of certain classes and she's basically ostracized. I thought she had one friend but it turns out that's not the case and my daughter said she was too embarrassed to tell. She doesn't ever get upset but did cry while telling me all this. I could go into more detail but I'm trying to keep this short (apologies if it is still a bit long)
To find out this is her experience has made me feel sick. She's already struggling with anxiety and not being accepted by her peers has made her completely shut down to the idea of attending school. Working with pastoral care she was able to attend a few days per week after schools hours to talk/do school work. She made a great bond with that pastoral care teacher but we have recently been told that as of tomorrow she will no longer be part of that department so this has caused more anxiety.
Coincidently I also received a letter form her school asking me to attend a meeting with the Head teacher mid June. Not the year head the actual head. I feel blindsighted as we had been open and honest with the school, kept communications maintained and managed to make some progress with the after school arrangements. There was never any talk about this being escalated and then this. In the letter is sites that they want to try and "prevent any undesirable legal implications of non -attendance as stared in Section 43 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980". And I've been sick with anxiety since receiving that. Especially since I know that my daughter wont be back at school by then so this will be even more days added to her non attendance. Can anyone please give me some advice as to what to expect of what this means. I feel so alone with this. Its just me and my daughter and now I feel like we've lost the one person we could trust (the pastoral care teacher we were working with) and I'm honestly terrified about what this all means.
