THE KIDS WHO CAN’T FACE SCHOOL

An increasing number of students around the world are finding it harder to attend school. Richard Crawshaw of Australian support group Can’t Face School  looks at the reasons for this and what can be done about it.
This isn’t about skipping school

Have you ever felt too scared to step into the spotlight somewhere? Your pounding heart, sweaty hands, and that overwhelming urge to flee? I have – and I know how hard it can be to push through that fear. For some young people, this fear isn’t just occasional. It is their daily reality when it comes to going to school.

These students aren’t avoiding school for fun. Their anxiety is real, and their families feel at a loss about how to talk about it – let alone manage it.

(Click below to watch the video from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Facebook: What is School Refusal and why are we seeing it more?)

A growing issue

Chronic absenteeism is on the rise globally. According to UNESCO, a staggering 272 million young people who have access to schools are out of school:

  • 11% of primary-aged children (78 million)
  • 15% of lower-secondary-aged youth (64 million)
  • 31% of upper-secondary-aged youth (130 million)

In Australia, more than 40% of students in Years 1 to 10 miss at least one in every 10 school days, according to the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority.

As the 2023 Senate Inquiry into School Refusal and related matters shows, there continues to be an increase in school refusal rates since the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. According to the OECD, this is also the case globally. One challenge in Australia has been that we are yet to work out a strong, single approach in our education system to respond to this epidemic, so schools and districts are, in effect, working on it in isolation.

Why are more kids disengaging?

The root causes are deep and can be broken down into the four key areas of poor mental health, family factors, school related challenges or social & emotional influences:

1. Youth Mental Health

  • Anxiety disorders
  • Depression
  • Panic attacks
  • Self-harm

2. Family Factors

  • Parental conflict or separation
  • Mental health issues in the home
  • Stressed and anxious parenting
  • Challenges building and maintaining supportive boundaries and routines

3. School-Related Challenges

  • Students feeling the academic pressure to catch up
  • Broken down relationships
  • Creating flexible learning environments, especially for neurodivergent students
  • Expectations to solve this problem are out of scope for teachers

4. Social & Environmental Influences

  • Post-COVID anxiety
  • Increased screen time
  • Economic hardship or housing instability
  • Exposure to trauma

This is therefore a complex issue. Causes of disengagement vary for each individual, as case studies show. At Can’t Face School, we respond to these challenges with individualised solutions, drawing on a model of holistic re-engagement, which recognises that no single factor explains school refusal and works by addressing the full picture of a young person’s life to support a pathway back to learning.

(Click below to watch the video:  Why Are More Ontario Students Avoiding School? | The Agenda)

Olivia’s story

Overview:
At 11, Olivia had just moved to a new school in rural Victoria with 540 students. She had been attending only half a day a week for nine months due to severe anxiety, having never shown signs of school refusal before.

Her symptoms included morning panic, running away, hiding under her bed, and seeking refuge in the school sickbay upon arrival. She also developed an eating disorder during this time. However, extreme though this seems, when an appropriate intervention was designed, Olivia responded.

Intervention:
 Olivia and her mother joined six one-hour online consultations with Can’t Face School.  Together, we:

  • Used reflective and targeted conversations
  • Rebuilt her self-esteem and confidence
  • Collaborated with the school
  • Set weekly goals
  • Adjusted home routines to support school attendance

Outcome:

Olivia gradually began to feel safe at school. She bonded with a supportive teacher and, over three months, increased her attendance from half a day per week to full-time. Her confidence and attendance grew as her anxiety decreased.

 Reengagement – not attendance

Based on our own survey feedback from schools and parents we’ve worked with, the biggest struggles include:

  • Helping students with self-regulation and coping strategies to be able attend again
  • Building time and trust for collaboration between schools and families
  • Organising effective re-engagement meetings
  • Knowing what successful re-engagement plans look like for our staff and families

We’ve found that focusing on re-engagement—not just attendance—makes a difference. When schools and families respectfully explore what is and isn’t working, real progress can be mutually made. We can’t throw solutions at problems we don’t fully understand, and it is exactly the same when dealing with school refusal.

So, a great question to discuss is how are we working with these families to help them?

(Click below to watch the video:  The Lockdown Kids: Interview with Richard Crawshaw)

Reflections and solutions

Communities around the world need to develop services to work more closely with schools that will establish the right kind of consistent and effective practice, offering preventative and responsive measures.

Just to reiterate what does work, Re-engaging students who can’t face school isn’t about quick fixes. It’s about rebuilding confidence, trust, and a sense of safety—one step at a time. With the right approach, school refusal can be solved in a timely manner and schools can re-allocate their resources. 

Advice for schools:

  • Build flexible reengagement pathways
  • Prioritize relationship – rebuilding
  • Collect the right data – re-engagement indicators, not just absence rates
  • Be curious before offering solutions
  • Implement a whole-school approach to engagement

Advice for Parents:

  • Listen to your child, really listen
  • Seek help early and be proactive
  • Set consistent home routines
  • Acknowledge the stress together and approach it as a team
  • Work with your school to build a re-engagement plan step-by-step
  • Take ‘cup filling’ time regularly e.g. catch a train into town a buy an ice-cream together

Richard Crawshaw is the founder of Can’t Face School and lives in the Macedon Ranges, Victoria, Australia.

Can’t Face School is an organisation that guides families and schools through this process. They offer packages of support to make a positive change. Using an online format means they can support families and schools wherever they are across the globe. 

FEATURE IMAGE: by Getty Images For Unsplash+

Support Images: by Simeon Jacobson on Unsplash & by Olya Kuzovkina on Unsplash