Charity sees huge spike in children refusing to go to school 

Of the 2,943 calls it received between January and September this year, 14.5% were about school refusal and school work-related issues.

The issues are combined in terms of call logging at the charity. Between them, they are up 25% in the first nine months of 2020 compared to the same period last year. 

And of these school-related calls, school refusal alone accounted for about 180 or 6% of calls between January and September.

Because children were not in school between March and late August, the majority of the school refusal calls the charity received this year were in September.

While about 10% of all the charity’s calls relate to anxiety, CEO Aileen Hickie says a majority of that anxiety is “totally in relation to school issues, and school refusal”.

She said: “Anxiety and school-related issues are often interlinked in the reason why a parent calls. 

What we are hearing about in terms of why children are refusing to go to school is anxiety about friendships, and about returning to school after the lockdown.

“This is in terms of Covid-19 protocols and restrictions and in terms of how the physical school will look, and in terms of travelling on the bus. There has also been a lot of anxiety around what bubble they might be put into.

“The issue about bullying is made difficult because of these bubbles or pods as they restrict the opportunity by a child to get away from their bully.”

She also said school refusal seems to be an issue, especially at times of transition from primary school into secondary school.

The reasons why children refuse to go to school are complex and varied. But ultimately they end up making parents feel powerless and they feel they have failed, even though is it is not their fault. 

"It causes high levels of distress within families about what they can do, especially if it involves their teenager who might be bigger than themselves.” 

The Irish Exam iner recently reported other preliminary Parentline statistics, which revealed the number of parents seeking support to deal with their violent children has more than quadrupled in 2020.

Calls to Parentline between January and September were up 37% from the 2,144 calls parents made in the same period in 2019.

The charity was set up in 1982 as a support group for new mothers with young babies and has since grown into a national helpline.

A spokesperson for Tusla said: “Schools submit student absence reports twice yearly to Tusla’s Education Support Service [TESS] on students that have been absent from school for a cumulative total of 20 days or more.

“This year, schools were asked to submit a once-off ‘Covid-19’ return to TESS in relation to any students who have not returned to school since the new term commenced in September.

“At this stage, most schools have submitted the data as requested and TESS has been following up with the remaining schools to ensure that the data collected is as complete as possible."

It said once this data has been completed, the analysis will provide an indicative number of students who have not returned to school. 

Tusla added: “TESS has seen increases in referrals to its service where the presenting issue is school refusal or student anxiety in relation to attending school.” 

Parentline’s helpline can be contacted during the day between 10am and 9pm on 01 873 3500 or 1890 927 277.