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One out of every four students currently suffers from poor mental health, exacerbating the issue.
school absence crisis
, according to new government data reveals.
The extensive research involving over 7,000 kids was shared exclusively with
The i Paper
is the first to establish the connection between inadequate
mental health
and attendance.
The study revealed that students facing mental health issues are seven times more prone to missing over 15 days of school compared to their counterparts.
Baroness Anne Longfield, the executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives, stated that the research supports what educators have been asserting—that “a significant number of children missing from school are grappling with their mental well-being.”
We’re facing both a crisis in children’s mental health and a problem with school attendance,” she stated. “Far too many kids do not see themselves as part of the school community, which can exacerbate feelings of anxiety and various mental health issues.
This development follows closely after the announcement from the Education Secretary who intends to present strategies next week aimed at addressing these interconnected issues. The plan includes details on how the government aims to fulfill its campaign promise of ensuring each child has access to education resources.
support for mental well-being in educational institutions.
It’s anticipated that new initiatives designed to increase participation will also be unveiled shortly.
The crisis of absenteeism
The announcement comes amid an escalating crisis in absenteeism, where recent data from the Department for Education (DfE) reveals that 150,000 pupils in state schools were categorized as severely absent during the academic year 2022-23, indicating they had missed more than half of their classes. This number marks an increase of 30,000 compared to the previous year and stands at 150 percent higher than the 60,000 students classified similarly back in 2018-19, prior to the onset of the pandemic.
The recent research followed 7,737 adolescents for three years and correlated their survey answers with their school attendance logs. It revealed that students who were frequently absent had mental health issues nearly double those of teens missing just about 1 percent of classes.
The study revealed that individuals using cannabis exhibited mental health conditions nearly double those of non-users. Additionally, students who faced bullying reported mental well-being approximately three times poorer compared to their peers who were not bullied.
The results are derived from the second group of the longitudinal study.
Research on Youth in England (LSYPE2), a comprehensive study tracking a cohort of individuals born in 1999/2000.
The interviews took place with students from Year 9 through Year 11, and their answers were correlated with attendance records obtained from the National Pupil Database (NPD).
Approximately 26 percent of the participants achieved high scores on the GHZ-12 scale — a widely recognized indicator of mental health — indicating that they likely suffer from some form of mental illness.
Data from NHS in 2023 indicates that 21 percent of children aged 8 to 16 may be experiencing a mental health disorder – an increase of seven percentage points compared to 2017, where the statistic was recorded at 14 percent.
The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, stated that a “concurrent crisis” of low attendance rates coupled with increasing mental health issues has been permitted to “settle,” cautioning that the well-being of students has “declined significantly.”
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“That’s why our administration is dedicated to ensuring each school has a specialized mental health expert available—and next week, we’ll be taking substantial steps forward to turn this into reality,” she stated.
She continued: “I want every child to achieve in classrooms where brilliant teachers have the time, tools and support to deliver an outstanding education.
“It’s why we are recruiting 6,500 extra teachers, so there are more brilliant teachers in our classrooms, and why we’re rolling out free breakfast clubs to every primary school in the country so children start the school day ready to learn.”
If you or anyone you know needs support, contact Mind’s support line on 0300 102 1234.