Emotionally-based school avoidance: how to get persistently absent children back into school

This toolkit from Leeds Beckett is designed for teachers who are supporting students at risk of missing school due to social and emotional difficulties.

The toolkit is divided into three main sections, focusing on primary and secondary students who might avoid school due to:

• caring responsibilities at home
• bullying and friendship difficulties
• pressure to achieve in schoolwork and advice.

Each section contains an example scenario and a practical action plan.

There is also additional advice for supporting neurodivergent students, such as reducing sensory overload, supporting emotional literacy, and removing barriers to learning.

It includes insightful facts and statistics about emotionally-based school avoidance, drawing on research from the Centre for Social Justice and the Children’s Commissioner.

Using this resource

This resource is designed for:

• use by mental health leads working with students aged 5 to 19+.

Learning outcomes

This resource addresses the following learning outcomes:

• Use their knowledge to effectively communicate a positive values-based approach, and to promote openness and understanding to normalise mental health and its fluctuations throughout life.
• Understand how they can use local services/resources to enhance their school/college messaging and develop social, emotional and mental health partners in the community.
• Connect different policies and processes (equality & diversity, bullying & harassment, behaviour and safeguarding) to ensure they are working together to support wellbeing.