Mum, I just hate school
More kids refuse to go
BEHAVIOURAL specialists report an increase in primaryage children refusing to go to school since lockdowns.
Researchers say the issue of school refusal is a “beast” to track because absence records are not detailed enough and typically do not specify why students are absent.
School refusal is when a child finds it extremely difficult to attend school, usually due to emotional distress or anxiety.
John Chellew, director of the St Kilda-based School Refusal Clinic and a mental health social worker, said the number of children aged five to seven needing care had doubled since the pandemic.
“We’re getting multiple requests a week. I’ve certainly noticed an increase in social anxiety among both boys and girls in primary and secondary school,” he said.
Mr Chellew said his biggest patient base, students moving from primary school to high school, had also ballooned.
“They seem to be the ones that are struggling the most,” he said. “They’ve gone from a small primary with one teacher into a secondary school with all sorts of academic and social complexities, which they’re not used to, particularly on the back of being limited to homeschooling.”
Glenn Melvin, of Deakin University’s Centre for Social and Early Emotional Development, said research had begun exploring the number of children with intellectual disabilities remaining absent from school, but those findings did not provide a snapshot of the whole school population.
“We conducted one study looking at school refusal, and another on attendance problems in kids with intellectual disability, and we found that there were about 5 per cent who reported refusing school in the past month,” Professor Melvin said.
A government spokeswoman said while most students enjoyed returning to the classroom, the secondary school Navigator program to support disengaged and vulnerable students had expanded.
“We were proud to invest $37m in the budget for a huge expansion of the Navigator program, supporting more young people at risk of disengaging from school, connecting them with an individual case worker who can link them to formal support services and create a path back into education,” she said.
Monash University psychologist Marie Yap said flowon effects of school refusal were a concern.
“A lot of professionals in the field are concerned around children being able to catch up on skills and opportunities for learning and development that have been lost as a consequence of the pandemic,” Professor Yap said.
Charmaine Hart’s 16-yearold son, George, has not attended school for six weeks due to anxiety. “There’s so many variables and the pandemic didn’t help,” she said.