We need to act faster when attendance drops, and secure a plan to keep children learning if they stop going to school, says Lisa Boorman.
As a headteacher, and a former headteacher in a mainstream secondary school, I have seen the same story play out too many times.
A child who attended regularly begins missing days. Parents say mornings are becoming a battle. School tries to support them. Pressure builds. Then one day the pupil simply stops coming in. Within two weeks, they are formally removed from the school roll.
Fourteen days. That’s all it takes for a young person to move from struggling to completely deregistered, often with no structured educational plan in place. It is a point of no return that can feel like a choice but often isn’t.
We only tend to talk seriously about alternative pathways after attendance has collapsed. By that point, families are anxious, defensive or exhausted. Some feel they have no choice but to take control themselves, turning to home education without fully understanding what it involves.
We need to ask harder questions about what happens before families reach that point.
School avoidance is rising
Emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA) isn’t new, and it is rising. For some pupils, school becomes overwhelming, whether due to anxiety, neurodiversity, bullying or fear of failure. These are children refusing education because they no longer feel safe or capable within it.
When I led a mainstream school, reintegration plans were often offered too late. Since moving into online education, I meet pupils who have been out of school for months. They are often bright, articulate and deeply anxious. Many were once thriving.
There needs to be a formal early-intervention route before families reach withdrawal. Online schooling is not a magic answer and should never be a dumping ground – it should never be used as a substitute for staffing or cost-cutting. But for some pupils on the verge of withdrawal, it can be a structured bridge.
Small live classes, visible teachers, real peers and academic continuity can help pupils rebuild confidence. It offers safety without abandoning structure. For some, it becomes a permanent solution. For others, a point of recovery before returning to mainstream.
So what could that early-intervention pathway look like? It might include:
- clear triggers for review when attendance begins to fall
- a shared plan between school, parents and local authority
- access to short-term, quality-assured provision, including online or hybrid learning
- agreed review points so decisions remain purposeful, not permanent
In the delayed SEND white paper, the government has an opportunity to rethink how schools, families and alternative providers work together.
We need a stepped pathway
Engagement has often been reduced to parent-contact metrics or attendance data. It must also mean conversations about what happens when a child begins to withdraw.
The current system leaves families facing a binary choice between attendance or deregistration. We need a stepped pathway. This would require agreed criteria, quality assurance and accountability. It would also require trust.
Funding could sit within existing attendance and alternative-provision budgets, but ring-fenced for early intervention rather than crisis response.
The government could set guidance and quality standards while enabling local partnerships between schools, councils and approved providers. The aim should be to make early support accessible.
Mainstream schools should not feel they are losing pupils forever. Parents should not feel judged for accepting support. Children should not feel excluded from education because they are struggling.
For school leaders, some of this work can begin now. Building relationships with reputable providers early means that, when difficulties arise, families can be offered supported options rather than emergency exits. Staff training on EBSA and early identification would make the difference.
If we treat alternative provision as something that happens only after a crisis, more children will fall through the gaps. Some will resurface in another setting. Others will not.
When parents take a child out of school, the 14-day period often ends with them being removed from the roll and left without support. Local authorities are already stretched and cannot offer the outreach home-schooling demands.
We need to stop assuming attendance issues can be fixed by attendance drives. Attendance is a signal, not the cause. If we want children in education, we need to make sure they feel they belong in it. That sometimes means offering a different doorway, not shutting the main one faster.
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