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Severe Absence disproportionately affecting pupils with SEND 

The government and the Children’s Commissioner have started to look more closely at those pupils who are persistently absent. While the Department for Education are currently consulting on their School Attendance: improving consistency of support measures, which closes on 28th February, there is ongoing research looking deeper into the figures.

As we approach the second anniversary of the first lockdown, it would be very easy to pin all the absence down to anxiety over COVID. This is not necessarily the case. However, the recent announcement that the legal guidelines and protections around COVID being removed will not have done much to ease this. Parents have also reported that their children feel safer and were able to learn better online.

Figures from the Centre for Social Justice report ‘Lost but not forgotten’ found that:

  • Pupils on SEN Support account for only 12% of the school population yet they make up 20% of the persistent absentees 
  • Pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) make up 12% of persistent absentees despite being only accounting for 3.1% of the school population. 

While these figures may include Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) pupils, it cannot be entirely covered by this.

There has been a marked decline in mental health for young people with more than 400,000 under-18s referred for specialist mental health care in England between April and October last year. This represents a 77% increase on the same period in 2019. The NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are heavily oversubscribed. There is also inconsistency nationally in referral wait times, with some children seen within a week while others can wait more than two years. Constraints on capacity has resulted in CAMHS often only reacting to the most severe cases and reducing pro-active/pre-emptive support.

With all the challenges that can often accompany SEND, keeping good mental health has always been a struggle. With these ever-uncertain times, this may have built up a significant amount of need within the system that may take years to overcome. 

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