Warning over ‘grossly inadequate’ mental health support for schools that could make high absence levels ‘the new norm’
Mental health support for children struggling to attend school is “grossly inadequate”, a report by a committee of cross-party MPs has said.
The number of children absent from school has more than doubled since the pandemic and a report by the Education Select Committee says ministers are not acting fast enough to get numbers down.
A “major cross-government review on how to overcome this challenge” is needed, the committee chair has said.
The children are asked to write about how they are feeling
One senior teacher has told Sky News she fears high levels of absence could become the “new norm” – inflicting long-term damage on thousands of children.
The latest figures show that in 2021/2022 more than 1.7 million children were persistently absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of school.
Around 125,000 spent more time out of class than in, according to Department for Education figures.
Furness Academy
The report is critical of the government’s approach, saying there has been “no significant improvement in the speed and scale” of reducing absence rates.
One of the authors’ biggest concerns is the rising rates of children struggling with their mental health.
Education Committee chair Robin Walker MP told Sky News: “It’s clear that since the pandemic there have been a growing number of children citing mental health reasons for being out of school.
“This is deeply troubling and it is evident that our health service can’t meet this growing demand, leaving schools to fill the gaps.
“A major cross-government review of how to overcome this challenge is needed and greater resources both inside and outside schools will be required.”
‘I just felt useless’
In Cumbria, teaching staff at Furness Academy in Barrow-in-Furness have been trying to reduce their absence rates by holding specialist mental health sessions with children struggling with school.
Sky News was given access to one of the sessions as students spoke openly about these struggles.
Josh, 13, said: “I felt like I was just one of the non-smart kids in school. I just felt useless.”
Josh said he ‘felt useless’
Teddy is six years old and staying in a homeless hostel
And another 13-year-old, Brooke, who has struggled with attendance, said: “I missed out a lot on the lessons. So I fell behind. I would just refuse to come in. I’d feel sick with anxiety in the morning before coming to school.”
John, also 13, said the sessions “have helped me improve my confidence. Maybe in the future I’ll be able to speak more instead of trying to hide myself away.”
The pilot scheme, funded by the government and run in conjunction with Westmorland and Furness Council, Furness Academy and the charity Family Action, has improved attendance for all of the children. But sessions like these are rare.
Diane McSharry, education officer at Westmorland and Furness Council, said the authority was under “huge pressure” to tackle low attendance.
“We have to come up with ways to support children and families to get over whatever the barrier is. It’s a constant battle but you have to think outside the box,” she said.
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Funding for schemes like this is often ad hoc and inconsistent, assistant head teacher Linzi Stanway said, and she doesn’t think Whitehall fully grasps the challenges they and others face.
“I think one of the things that’s missing at the moment is an understanding of just how difficult a process this is.
“I’m really worried that this is going to go on for a long period of time.
“And if we don’t do something quickly, I think it is going to become the new norm and that’s not going to be good for anybody.”
Furness Academy, staff have been trying to reduce their absence rates
Student Brooke speaks at a session
ANALYSIS: How Sky News has reported the national crisis of children missing from school
The Education Select Committee report has made a series of recommendations it says will help solve the national crisis in low attendance. Many of these issues have been highlighted by Sky News as part of a long-running investigation.
TEDDY’S STORY
Teddy is six years old and staying in a homeless hostel
The report says the rising costs of transport and uniforms was a major barrier to attendance, particularly affecting pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Last May, Sky News featured the story of Sammy and her six-year-old son Teddy, who were living in a homeless hostel after their landlord evicted them through no fault of their own.
Sammy told Sky News she could not afford transport costs to get her son to school and he was slipping behind on his education.
The report said that while low-income families can apply for extra support for costs like transport, anecdotal evidence suggests take-up is low.
You can read Teddy’s story here.
CHARLIE’S STORY
Charlie is a passionate boxer
The committee heavily focuses on mental health as a barrier to attendance.
In June we reported on 13-year-old Charlie, who hasn’t been to school for the past three years. His dad James said his son was struggling with anxiety and that even though authorities had fined him thousands of pounds, he was “willing to go to prison” rather than force his son to school.
Today’s report said there is a “lack of consistency between England’s local authorities in their approach to issuing fines. Schools Minister Nick Gibb recently told the committee fines can be suitable, “if families are not prepared to engage” with support.
You can read Charlie’s story here
GEORGE’S STORY
George has not been to school for six months
The select committee also raises the problems faced by children with special educational needs (SEND). Absence rates are significantly higher among pupils with SEND and there’s a shortage of special school places in many parts of the country
In July, Sky News spoke to 10-year-old George and his mum Rachel.
He has a complex speech disorder that makes it hard for him to learn, and he has been waiting years for a diagnosis to see if he has autism.
We revealed how thousands of children with special educational needs or disabilities are missing out on the education they are entitled to because of huge delays in the system designed to support them.
A record half a million pupils now have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) – a legal document setting out a child or young person’s special educational needs, the support they require, and the outcomes they would like to achieve.
The plans must be issued within 20 weeks of being applied for, but analysis of government data by Sky News reveals this deadline is missed in a staggering half of all cases, meaning thousands of children are having to wait. In an exclusive interview with Sky News, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was forced to admit that children like George “won’t be helped as much as we want to, as quickly as we want to”.
You can read George’s story here
THE MISSING CHILDREN
The report urges the government to bring into law a national register of children missing education.
We reported how thousands of children vanished from school and authorities often had no idea where they were.
On a single day in spring this year, local authorities in England reported an estimated 24,700 children as missing education – a worrying snapshot of the crisis facing schools.
A Sky News FOI revealed that Education Welfare Officers have been cut by half in the last decade.
The report recommends that the Department for Education urgently looks at the funding available for these jobs.
You can read the story here
It’s like The Godfather, one reformed drug trafficker tells me.
The mythical gangster film centred on an organised crime dynasty locked in a transfer of power.
Communities in Scotland currently have a front row seat to a new war of violence, torture, and taunts as feuding drug lords and notorious families grapple for control of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There have been more than a dozen brutal attacks over the past six weeks – ranging from fire bombings to attacks on children and gun violence.
A firebomb attack in Scotland
Victims left for dead, businesses up in flames
Gangsters have filmed themselves setting fire to buildings and homes connected to the associates and relatives of their bitter rivals.
The main aim, they boast, is to “exterminate” the opposition.
The taunting footage, accompanied by the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group, has been plastered over social media as part of a deliberate game of goading.
A 12-year-old boy and 72-year-old woman were left for dead when teenagers wearing balaclavas burst into a home in north Glasgow.
Garages and businesses have gone up in flames. Shots were fired at an Edinburgh house.
Signals are being sent of who wants control of Scotland’s dark criminal underworld.
A firebomb attack that saw a man throw an incendiary device through a building window
The fire attack set to the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group
What’s caused the gang war?
The former director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, Graeme Pearson, explains how a “vacuum of leadership” is playing a part.
Last October, Glasgow-based cocaine kingpin Jamie Stevenson, known as The Iceman, was jailed after orchestrating a £100m cocaine shipment stashed in banana boxes from South America.
The mob leader was one of Britain’s most wanted, running his business like another on-screen criminal enterprise: The Sopranos.
The 59-year-old fugitive went on the run before eventually being hunted and apprehended by police while out jogging in the Netherlands.
Jamie Stevenson. Pic: Police Scotland
Pic: Crown Office
‘Old scores to settle’
But paranoia was running rife about how this notorious gangster could be brought down. Was there a grass? Was it one of their own?
It further fuelled divisions and forced new alliances to be forged across Scotland’s organised criminal networks.
It wasn’t until The Iceman case came to court that it was revealed an encrypted messaging platform, known as EncroChat, had been infiltrated by law enforcement.
It ultimately led to Stevenson pleading guilty.
Ex-senior drug enforcement officer Mr Pearson told Sky News: “It is a complex picture because you have got people who are in prison who still want to have influence outside and look after what was their business.
“On the outside you’ve got wannabes who are coming forward, and they think this is an opportunity for them, and you have got others have old scores to settle that they could not settle when crime bosses were around.”
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Graeme Pearson
Mr Pearson describes a toxic mix swirling to create outbursts of violence unfolding in Scotland.
He concluded: “All that mixes together – and the greed for the money that comes from drugs, and from the kudos that comes from being a ‘main man’, and you end up with competition, violence, and the kind of incidents we have seen over the past four to six weeks.”
New wave of violence ‘barbaric’
Glasgow man Mark Dempster is a former addict, dealer, and drug smuggler who is now an author and respected counsellor helping people quit drinking and drugs.
He describes the “jostle for power” as not a new concept among Glasgow’s high profile gangland families.
Mark Dempster
“There is always going to be someone new who wants to control the markets. It is like The Godfather. There is no difference between Scotland, Albania, or India,” he said.
Mr Dempster suggests a shift in tactics in Glasgow and Edinburgh in recent weeks, with 12-year-olds being viciously attacked in the middle of the night.
“It is barbaric. When young people, children, get pulled into the cross fire. It takes it to a different level.
“At least with the old mafiosa they had an unwritten rule that no children, no other family members. You would deal directly with the main people that were your opposition.”
Police Scotland is racing to get control of the situation, but declined to speak to Sky News about its ongoing operation.
It has been suggested 100 officers are working on this case, with “arrests imminent”.
But this is at the very sharp end of sophisticated criminal empires where the police are not feared, there are fierce vendettas and, clearly, power is up for grabs.
UK
Laws may need to be bolstered to crack down on exploitation of child ‘influencers’, senior MP suggests
Laws may need to be strengthened to crack down on the exploitation of child “influencers”, a senior Labour MP has warned.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the science, technology and innovation committee, said parts of the Online Safety Act – passed in October 2023 – may already be “obsolete or inadequate”.
Politics latest: Follow live updates
Experts have raised concerns that there is a lack of provision in industry laws for children who earn money through brand collaborations on social media when compared to child actors and models.
This has led to some children advertising in their underwear on social media, one expert has claimed.
Those working in more traditional entertainment fields are safeguarded by performance laws, which strictly govern the hours a minor can work, the money they earn and who they are accompanied by.
The Child Influencer Project, which has curated the world’s first industry guidelines for the group, has warned of a “large gap in UK law” which is not sufficiently filled by new online safety legislation.
Official portrait of Chi Onwurah.
Pic: UK Parlimeant
The group’s research found that child influencers could be exposed to as many as 20 different risks of harm, including to dignity, identity, family life, education, and their health and safety.
Ms Onwurah told Sky News there needs to be a “much clearer understanding of the nature of child influencers ‘work’ and the legal and regulatory framework around it”.
She said: “The safety and welfare of children are at the heart of the Online Safety Act and rightly so.
“However, as we know in a number of areas the act may already be obsolete or inadequate due to the lack of foresight and rigour of the last government.”
Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, agreed that regulations “need to keep pace with the times”, with child influencers on social media “protected in the same way” as child actors or models.
“Liberal Democrats would welcome steps to strengthen the Online Safety Act on this front,” she added.
‘Something has to be done’
MPs warned in 2022 that the government should “urgently address the gap in UK child labour and performance regulation that is leaving child influencers without protection”.
They asked for new laws on working hours and conditions, a mandate for the protection of the child’s earnings, a right to erasure and to bring child labour arrangements under the oversight of local authorities.
However, Dr Francis Rees, the principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, told Sky News that even after the implementation of the Online Safety Act, “there’s still a lot wanting”.
“Something has to be done to make brands more aware of their own duty of care towards kids in this arena,” she said.
Dr Rees added that achieving performances from children on social media “can involve extremely coercive and disruptive practices”.
“We simply have to do more to protect these children who have very little say or understanding of what is really happening. Most are left without a voice and without a choice.”
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The researcher pointed to one particular instance, in which children were advertising an underwear brand on social media.
She said: “The kids in the company’s own marketing material or their own media campaigns are either pulling up the band of the underwear underneath their clothing, or they’re holding the underwear up while they’re fully clothed.
“But whenever you look at any of the sponsored content produced by families with children – mum, dad, and child are in their underwear.”
Dr Rees said it is “night and day” in terms of how companies are behaving when they have responsibility for the material, versus “the lack of responsibility once they hand it over to parents with kids”.
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