Thank you to Lola Okolosie for lifting the lid on the government’s “ghost children” narrative in response to the current school attendance crisis – and its attempt to blame and criminalise parents when a compassionate response is needed (I’m a teacher: don’t be fooled by Tory scare stories on the ‘ghost children’ missing from school, 16 August).
Two years ago, I was the parent of a so-called ghost child – my son, who became unable to attend school, or leave the house at all. It was a mental health crisis that we were not equipped to deal with. As a family we were in uncharted territory – we reached out for support and instead found ourselves blamed, even facing legal repercussions. When help did come, it was through peer support groups such as Not Fine in School.
I started a petition with a fellow parent lobbying for vulnerable families to be protected from fines and prosecutions. We met the schools minister, Nick Gibb, and the Department for Education in May to share our petition – and recommend that they incorporate lived-experience perspectives into guidance. This is currently missing. Ultimately, the ghost children narrative will fail, because it’s not true; it’s time the government stopped trying to scare us with it.
Name and address supplied
• As a disabled single parent with a child in year 10 who has autism spectrum disorder and severe mental health difficulties, I have been struggling with schools, the local authority and the NHS to get support for my daughter for years.
She has not been in school since the Covid lockdown. It is like being trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare with no light on the horizon. My daughter has an education, health and care plan, but her special educational needs and disabilities (Send) officer ignores my emails and the local authority refused to even put my request for education out of a school setting to the decision panel, even though it was backed up by a letter from mental health professionals.
Mainstream secondary schools are too big, or too unwilling, to accommodate Send children and there are not enough places in specialist schools. I am exhausted from the stress of it all.
Name and address supplied
• Lola Okolosie’s piece overlooks a key vulnerable group: children involved with social care services. Based on the most recent government figures available, we estimate that 54% of secondary school pupils involved with social care services were persistently absent in 2021-22, compared with 28% of their classmates.
As well as missing out on education through high levels of absence, children with social workers are much more likely to be expelled or suspended, according to our research. Children with social workers are also more likely to be removed from the school rolls early. To address the accumulation of higher rates of non-enrolment, suspension, expulsion and absence, which mean that children with a social worker face disproportionate barriers to accessing education, we must shift our focus from the individual to the root causes of these problems.
We agree that schools must be adequately funded to meet the needs of all their pupils. However, increased funding must also be coupled with innovative policy reforms to create a truly inclusive education system.
Dr Matthew Jay and Dr Louise Mc Grath-Lone
University College London
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