Since the 2020 UK wide lockdowns as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic; UK schools have seen a correlation between students who experience high levels of anxiety and their attendance at school.

In this blog, we examine reasons why students may be avoiding school and ways to improve attendance in your setting while supporting your students’ mental health and wellbeing. 

Statistics of Anxiety affecting Attendance in the UK 

Enough research has been conducted for us to confirm that anxiety affects  student attendance in the UK. In 2023 the DfE conducted a study which showed a 150% increase in students who are persistently absent from school. 

Similarly, in Autumn 2023, the Children’s Commissioner reported that a third (33.0%) of children eligible for free school meals were persistently absent, compared to 15.7% of children who were not eligible. Youth Charity, Stem4, conducted a survey in 2024 that discovered 28% of 12 to 18-year-olds across the UK have not attended school over the last year due to anxiety.

We cannot deny these statistics, but how do we better support students to help them deal with feelings of anxiety and to improve attendance? 

Key Factors in Poor Attendance and Anxiety 

Before discussing solutions, it is vital to understand the reasons why students may avoid school when their mental health is suffering. ImpactED identified 3 key factors in poor attendance:

  1. Sense of belonging and safety
  2. Lack of understanding of the purpose of learning/school
  3. Lack of strong relationships with peers and teachers

Sense of belonging and safety

From the ImpactED study, we see a correlation between young people who have an improved sense of belonging and their attendance. Students who lack this sense of belonging are more likely to miss school because they feel isolated. The study also showed that girls are more likely to miss school if they feel unsafe, so considering the safety of the school is also vital. 

Lack of understanding of the purpose of learning school

Young people don’t miss school because they don’t want to learn. Rather, young people miss school when they don’t see a connection between the material and how it relates to them and their lives. In terms of RSHE/PSHE lessons this means ensuring the material is relevant to them and they understand the importance of the skills they are learning and how it will help them in later life. 

Lack of strong relationships with peers and teachers

This goes hand in hand with the aspect of belonging. Students with stronger relationships have increased motivation to attend school. This is both because they have good relationships with their peers, but also because they understand they can approach a teacher if they need support. 

Ways to Improve Student Attendance and Anxiety

From these 3 factors of poor attendance we then created 3 tips for improving student attendance:

  1. Improving student sense of belonging
  2. An open school culture to mental health
  3. A whole-school approach to attendance 

Improving student sense of belonging

To improve your students sense of belonging and help students feel like part of the community we have the following tips:

  • Relationships – Be intentional with relationships, which students have good relationships with peers and teachers and which students are not supported and need better relationships? 
  • Pupil as an asset to the school community – what are their strengths and what do they bring to their community? Can you get students involved in a way that uses their strengths to encourage their self of belonging. 
  • Individual approach – each student is individual and needs different support. Have an action plan specific to the child to build up their attendance – for example; different start times or a reduced timetable but always with a view to increasing this in small steps. 
  • Trusted adults – Having a trusted adult and daily check-ins to celebrate small wins. 
  • Managing anxiety whilst a child is not attending – we have heard from young people that the scariest part of this process is returning to school and worrying that they are too far behind to catch back up. Ensure students feel supported in the lead up to returning to school to help this anxiety. 

An open school culture to mental health

A culture where we explicitly discuss difficult topics including mental health and wellbeing will help students feel supported when they are struggling. 

  • Provide the vocabulary for emotional regulation – Help students understand their emotions and communicate their emotions effectively. 
  • Provide safe spaces for discussion with a trusted adult – Enableteachers to feel more confident in creating these safe spaces for discussion. 
  • Practice resilience – The link between improved resilience and grit has been proven. Given young people opportunities throughout the school day to reflect and see where they can improve their resilience. Also celebrate when students overcome certain challenges. 
  • Peer mentors/buddies – Hearing other young people discussing their issues can be powerful and also give students someone who can empathise with what they are going through. Supporting students from a peer angle is vital for an open school culture. 

A whole-school approach to attendance 

This is not a single teacher’s focus but should be a whole school policy to improve attendance and support students mental health and wellbeing. 

  • Multiple opportunities in the curriculum to discuss values, goals, practice skills, build relationships, identity – for example during form time, PSHE lessons, cross curricular and during assemblies.
  • Anonymous pupil voice surveys – These are a great way to hear from your students what they are struggling with, their challenges and feedback. 
  • Whole staff CPD – Once again, it can’t be on one teacher to handle this. Ensure all staff feel confident to talk about mental health to ensure consistent messaging and staff buy-in to the importance of student wellbeing, specifically through the delivery of RSHE.
  • Behaviour systems – Rather than punishing unacceptable behaviour, encourage reflective conversations with pupils so they can understand why the behaviour is not acceptable. Life Lessons have new Behaviour Intervention resources to support schools with this. Find out more here. 
  • Working in partnership with local authorities, primary feeder schools, parents, social workers, other agencies and organisations to implement not only a whole-school approach but a whole agency approach to attendance. 

Attendance and Anxiety Case Study with Ark Kings 

One of our Life Lessons partner schools discussed how they improve anxiety and attendance at Ark Kings. 

Ark Kings are a school who have both a primary and secondary phase and reported a large drop in attendance post Covid-19, especially notable in their secondary school. Post Cobid-19 the school struggled to improve attendance for their secondary students in particular. 

Caz Brasenell, Ark Network Executive Principal for Attendance at Ark Kings explains some of the steps they took to improve attendance and support student mental health and wellbeing.

The main focus was on the very important theme: That attendance is everyone’s responsibility. 

  • Robust tracking of all pupils – all absences noted as safeguarding concerns. 
  • First day response – If a pupil is not in school then where are they? Are they safe? 
  • Everyone is responsible for safeguarding – Absent pupils are a safeguarding concern. 
  • Patterns of absence are a safeguarding concern.
  • “You’ve been missing calls” – This became a pattern for all staff to tell students that they have been missed and it is great to have them back at school. 
  • Wellbeing follow up – Upon a return to school students all students would have a wellbeing follow up to ensure they feel supported and ready to be back at school. 
  • Swift support and interventions in place when needed. 

The team at Ark Kings examined the Guidance Working Together to Improve School Attendance. From this guidance Ark Kings took the follow steps: 

  • Promotion and prevention – This theme become important across the whole school culture and encouraged all staff to focus on preventing future attendance issues 
  • Clarity through policy – The attendance policy was updated to make it easier to understand and to navigate. 
  • Early intervention – This included robust systems for identification of students with attendance issues and using data to effectively track attendance. 
  • Focus on persistent and severe absence – Ark Kings started to treat absences as safeguarding concerns and tracked them as such.
  • Focus on multi-agency support for those who need it most – Once again focusing on the fact that attendance is everyone’s responsibility and to seek support from their local authority.
  • Support first approach – always focused on supporting the student and trying to prevent future attendance issues. 

We hope these tips have been helpful and you are able to implement some of all of them into your attendance policy to further support your students. 

Anxiety Toolkit

One issue that is constantly reoccurring in our conversations with schools is around stress and anxiety amongst students since Covid-19 and the high levels of emotionally based school avoidance.

To help support teachers we have created an Anxiety Toolkit. This toolkit contains x4 resources to help you support students suffering from anxiety or stress. Download the toolkit here.

References

Related resources