I tried everything to get my daughter to go to school

Hannah is one of thousands of children across Scotland who have been regularly missing school. Some are absent for days, others for years.

Twelve-year-old Hannah missed most of her primary school education.

Right from her first day she barely spoke and would get very upset, so the school would phone her mum daily to ask her to pick her up.

By the time she got to primary four she refused to go altogether.

She would take off her uniform, cry and scream.

Psychologists say the rise in the number of children absent from school is not about bunking off but because many are too anxious to step through the school gates.

And since Covid many children are still struggling to attend full-time.

The latest figures from the Scottish government show that nearly one in three pupils are persistently absent from school.

Hannah’s mum Ashly says her daughter, who is autistic, struggled with the noise and busyness of the school environment.

“Obviously she didn’t feel safe in school,” Hannah says.

“She didn’t feel comfortable. I tried everything to get her to school.”

Then almost two years ago they started working with a project from the charity Quarriers called Reach, which involves a trained member of staff going to their home in Glasgow to help increase their confidence.

“For the first six weeks she wouldn’t even speak to her,” Ashly says.

The support worker began by going to the primary school with Hannah for an hour a day and sitting with her in a quiet room doing crafts and games.

Over last summer, before Hannah started at secondary, she and her worker spent days in the school baking cakes and having fun.

After almost two years, Hannah’s worker has gradually got her to a point where she is attending her S1 secondary school class most days.

Ashly told the BBC: “Even getting Hannah to school without crying and being upset was a big thing and now she gets herself ready and gets herself organised for school so that is a big difference.”

While average attendance in schools has increased by 0.1% in the past two years, overall it is still lower than pre-pandemic levels.

There are more than 700,000 pupils in Scotland and more than 31% of them were absent for 10% or more of the year, according to the latest report – the equivalent of at least 19 school days missed.

In the decade before the Covid-19 school closures, persistent absence was between 19% and 22%, but by 2023/24 secondary school rates had risen to 40%.

One in 40 pupils was absent for more that half of the school year – at least 95 days.

Among local authorities, the rate of persistent absence was lowest in East Renfrewshire at 20% and highest in North Ayrshire at 37.9%.

A Scottish government spokesperson said it was addressing “issues of attendance” with Education Scotland and the interim chief inspector, alongside work by local authorities.

“The pandemic had a significant impact on school attendance, so it is welcome to see some positive improvement in attendance and persistent absence levels,” he said.

“All children and young people should get the support that they need to reach their full potential, but we need sustained effort at all levels of the education system to ensure this happens.”

Glasgow City Council’s own figures show that school absence has increased every year for the past five years.

The council is now working on a campaign to encourage parents in particular to remember the importance of attending.

The lead educational psychologist for Glasgow, Barry Syme, told the BBC that absence is not generally about kids skipping school.

“I think the days of children just bunking off is a very simple way of looking at it,” he said.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of young people with mental health concerns, particularly anxiety and stress.

“That was still an issue pre-pandemic but certainly the pandemic has not helped in any way with that.”

Mr Syme said there had been an increase in the number of young people identified with neurodiversity and the associated challenges of the school environment such as noise and large numbers of people.

He also said that children were picking up on the pressures felt by their parents, such as cost of living issues.

Colin Simpson, who runs the Quarriers service, said they had seen huge benefits from offering one-to-one support to families.

In the first two years, the project worked with about 200 children but there are another 400 still waiting.

“There’s a huge waiting list for this service because there’s an awful lot of young people across the city of Glasgow and beyond who have chronic non-attendance challenges and they all deserve that kind of support,” he said.

“But it takes time to give a child the support that they need.

“And it takes a lot of effort and energy and a really, really well established relationship.”

Professor Edward Sosu of the University of Strathclyde said the fall in average attendance was a serious concern and that Scotland needed to tackle the problem.

He said a rise in poverty, mental health problems and additional support needs were the major reasons for the increase in absences.

And he said that regardless of social class or background, it was almost impossible to make up for the lost time in school.

His research looked at people who were aged between 34 and 42, and the impact their school attendance rates had on their outcomes.

“What we found is that missing an average of just 10 days aged 10 was linked to not having any qualifications age 42 or not being in employment. So missing that small amount of school in that time had a negative impact,” he said.

“This was irrespective of their socioeconomic background, irrespective of cognitive outcomes, irrespective of all the background characteristics.

“Our assumption originally was that those from middle class backgrounds will be able to help their children catch up – but what we found is that irrespective of your background, absences have a negative impact on your educational achievement.”