While there are a number of reasons why school attendance has crumbled, perhaps a fundamental issue is being overlooked (‘Children are holding a mirror up to us’: why are England’s kids refusing to go to school?, 2 September). When children have experienced freedom of mind and choice during closures, why would they wish to return to police states, largely administered by privatised mini-corporations that control everything from clothes to how to think and express yourself?
The fact that 40,000 teachers left the profession for reasons other than retirement in the last year suggests many adults find the stress-inducing conditions and a curriculum that is dull, completely test-orientated and largely irrelevant to the pressing needs of being alive in 2023 unbearable too.
It may not be a conscious rebellion among children, but refusal is a reaction to a system that induces anxiety when your individuality is denied. Even the children’s commissioner, after running a hardline academy, has had a rather late epiphany: fun, play and community are vital aspects of education.
Phil Revels
West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire
• I wonder if it is time to take a deeper look at the current trend in English schools to instil a prison-style discipline approach, and whether this may shed some light on why the number of children refusing to go to school has risen.
My 11-year-old started secondary school last week. The school – not our first choice – pride themselves on their hardline strictness, and we were told in introductory meetings that they are so strict “because they care” and that the immediate one-hour detentions for any infraction (fighting, missing homework, forgetting a pen, chatting, wearing the wrong colour hairband) are to “help the children learn”. These phrases are straight out of the coercive control handbook.
They even go as far as insisting children bring their full uniform in (both jumper and blazer) on blisteringly hot days – while the teachers freely wear clothes suitable for the weather. When challenged on this, they point to the very visible results of significant improvements in behaviour and attention in class. But I can’t help be left with the question: “At what cost?”
If I were forced to go somewhere every day to walk on eggshells, not speak in the corridors, and wear excessive and uncomfortable clothes, without any autonomy over my own toileting, I would very soon need to stop attending and would require significant mental health support to recover.
Given people tell me that this approach is now pervasive in secondary schools, is there any wonder that there is an epidemic in children needing support with their mental health?
Name and address supplied
• Gaby Hinsliff’s piece on children refusing to go to school is really important. Interestingly, 14-year-old Dilly, quoted in the article, hit the nail on the head. Her ideal school would be “much more personal, shorter days, no homework and no tests”.
Schools can’t deliver this, but small, caring learning communities can. They are springing up all over the country. Our self-managed learning community in Sussex does what Dilly has sensibly identified as the need. We have morning or afternoon programmes for nine- to 17-year-olds, with no imposed teaching, no uniforms, no formal lessons and no imposed timetable – students create their own to-do lists for what they want to learn. And research shows that it works.
Dr Ian Cunningham
Chair of governors, Self Managed Learning College
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