Out of Sight: How schools are failing Scotland's 'ghost children'

School’s out for the summer, but with some children it’s hard to tell the difference. Scotland’s so-called ‘ghost children’ – those who are absent from school for long spells – have increased dramatically in number since before the pandemic. 

The latest Scottish Government figures show that nearly 11.9 per cent of pupils were absent in 2023/24 for 20 per cent of the school year or more. That equates to 83,600 pupils, with higher absence rates in secondary than primary. 

Two and a half per cent of pupils – 17,600 – were absent for half the time or more (known as severely absent).

There has also been a growing trend for pupils to be absent for shorter periods. In total, 31.4 per cent of pupils are persistently absent – that is, out of school for 10 per cent or more of the school year (at least 19 full days, or one day off a fortnight). While persistent absence is down slightly year-on-year, it is “substantially higher” than during the decade before 2020 (when it was around 20 per cent), according to the Scottish Government. It is also significantly higher than in England. This led the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) think tank to describe the situation in a report last year as being at “crisis level”.

Children are more likely to be absent if they come from a deprived area. The increase in persistent absence, some fear, makes it harder to tackle the attainment gap and runs parallel with an increase in the number of pupils leaving at the end of S4. Children are also significantly more likely to be absent for long periods if they have an additional support need (ASN). 

Certain children with additional needs benefited from being away from the sensory overload of school during Covid lockdowns, as they were not having their needs met at school. Some have not attended school much since.

Carrie Watts, an autistic woman who lives in the Highlands, has two sons who are autistic and with ADHD. Her younger son is in P7 but has never attended for a full week. He has high support needs and must have a safe person such as a pupil support assistant to coregulate with, to help him manage his emotions. If no staff member is available on a given day – on a field trip for instance – it can prevent him from attending, meaning he is unofficially excluded.

“In spite of them being really good people, the school is not set up for him,” says Watts.
Her older son stopped attending school after the first two months of S1. He is now 16 and at the end of what would be S4. 

“He always had difficulty going to school,” explains Watts. “The primary school did a great deal to try and support us but there’s only so much you can do when a different environment is required.

“Once he was home due to the Covid pandemic in P6 he realised the stress he was under during school. Before that he’d had nothing to compare it to. It was a whole generation of kids realising that they didn’t have to feel uncomfortable all of the time.

“I was able to adapt what we were doing to what my sons’ individual needs were, which school was not able to do. 

“They thrived.”

Going back to school afterwards was “terrible” for her sons, she says.

Things came to a head for her older boy in high school. “By the October holiday his mental health had plummeted, and he couldn’t go on,” she says. “The dynamics of secondary school are very different from primary. As far as things go, primary is actually as nurturing and caring an environment as you could get for a neurodivergent person. Then you take this orchid, and you throw them into the desert. 

“There is no requirement on any teacher to have any understanding of autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia. The mainstream environment isn’t right for these children. If you want them in the mainstream environment, you have to fund it properly and train teachers appropriately.”

She has since struggled to find courses even online that her older son can do due to an insistence from the local authority that children should be learning in school. 

“There are no ways to learn apart from the standard pathway,” says Watts. “The school system is incredibly ableist. We celebrate five-year-olds for never missing a day of school no matter how ill they are. We are telling them we place value on their compliance. Well, neurodivergent people aren’t the best at complying. 

“I think more children should have the right to say ‘this isn’t working for me’.”

Rob Holland, director of the National Autistic Society Scotland, says that many autistic young people are “forced out of school because they cannot get the support they need” even though they have a right to an education. 

He says: “We hear regularly from families whose children and young people have been out of education for months, if not years. Autistic learners are also more likely to be temporarily excluded and to experience a part-time timetable, all of which can lead to longer and more persistent absence.”

The problem has worsened since the pandemic, but it existed before, he adds.

“While we welcome the commitment of £29m additional funding for Additional Support for Learning in this year’s budget, the Scottish Government needs to start working at pace to improve support in schools so that more generations of young people don’t miss out on an education,” he says.

Teaching union the NASUWT stresses the need for more teachers to support the growing numbers of pupils with ASN (just over 40 per cent last year) and also believe that the “presumption of mainstream education” for pupils with additional needs should be reviewed as some children are not thriving.

Colin Simpson of Quarriers is service manager of the Reach project supporting children and young people who find it hard to attend school. He highlights ASN but also mental health and other personal challenges as factors in long-term absence. 

He says: “The issue of chronic non-attendance is complex, with many different challenges faced by children and families. Children experiencing high levels of anxiety believe that schools don’t feel safe and welcoming, and this can make it difficult for them to engage.

“Childhood trauma can also be a factor in determining how capable children feel when engaging with the broader community. Some children also have caring responsibilities which make it hard for them to put their own learning needs first.”

In a survey by the NASUWT last December, 60 per cent of Scottish teachers mentioned children’s mental health as a trigger for pupil absence.

“The longer someone is off, the more difficult it becomes for them to return,” says Mike Corbett, NASUWT national official for Scotland.

Unmet additional support needs and complex, challenging personal circumstances are the main reasons for severe absence, but most persistent absence is for shorter periods and teachers believe parental attitudes to education play into this. Seventy-five per cent of Scottish teachers in the NASUWT survey singled out parent and carer disengagement as a major issue in pupil absence.

“Parents [are] not valuing the education their children receive or just assuming they’ll catch up. This bleeds into the attitude pupils hold towards school,” commented one Scottish teacher.
This is backed up by UK-wide polling from the CSJ which shows almost three in 10 parents agree that the pandemic showed it isn’t essential for children to attend school every day. 
Children being taken out of school on holiday, sometimes in the middle of term, is a widespread frustration among teachers.

Teachers have always been required to support absent pupils, but 45 per cent said their workload had increased significantly as a consequence of rising non-attendance, due to the need to prepare different work for absent or returning pupils.

Analysis by the CSJ based on English data indicates that persistently absent pupils are more than three times as likely to commit a criminal offence by age 17 than pupils who attend school fully. 

The NASUWT survey did not illuminate concerns around criminality. It did, however, throw up concerns about children “roaming” schools instead of attending classes.

Corbett explains that some children only attend a few classes each day because of a recognised additional need, which schools rightly facilitate. He reports however that in some schools, such children do not have anywhere to go outwith those classes. 

In addition, other children with no additional needs sometimes try and “exploit” the situation with copycat behaviour, something that is found in schools in a range of different catchment areas. “That’s why in some schools it’s significant groups – we’re talking about 20, 25, 30 pupils – not in their classes at any one time,” says Corbett. 

“It will inevitably impact on attainment.”

Corbett says: “If it’s the ones who are going on holiday during term time or the ones who are going around the school just because they think they can get away with it, I think our members feel there could be firmer action taken there by head teachers. 

“Consistent application of school rules and consequences for breaking those school rules are absolutely what our members are after.”

There is no appetite to fine parents, but some schools do manage the issue better than others, Corbett points out. 

Making it “awkward and inconvenient” for parents to ignore the problem is one approach, he explains. “For example they say [to the parent], if the pupil is not willing to come in for all the classes they’re meant to, we’ve flagged it already, right, OK, we’re going to say they’re not coming in at all tomorrow or the following two days and you have to come in for an interview with the head teacher to discuss it.”

But given the scale of the problem, there is also pressure on local authorities and the Scottish Government to act. 

Education Scotland raised the possibility last year of providing “bespoke support for areas where improving levels of attendance remains a challenge”, but Corbett says there is no evidence of that being provided.

A spokesperson for the body said school attendance was the responsibility of local authorities, adding: “Education Scotland is providing bespoke support for local authorities where levels of attendance remain a concern. The Improving Attendance Quality Improvement Programme was delivered to an initial cohort of six local authorities.”

A spokesperson for Cosla, which represents Scottish councils, said the body was working with partners to update existing guidance on promoting and managing school attendance, adding: “Additionally, schools and councils are working hard to improve attendance, with a range of initiatives to support children and young people to attend school, including campaigns, work with families, and dedicated members of staff who work closely with them to understand the barriers to attending.”

For the parents of children with additional needs, a key problem is the inflexible nature of school education. Watts believes there needs to be a move away from the current focus on exam results to look at each individual child and help them work towards their goals in their own way.

Simpson also wants more focus on the individual, saying: “Schools need to better understand the holistic needs of the child and put resources in place which acknowledge the complex nature of children’s difficulties and also focus on finding the most appropriate learning pathway for the child.”

What everyone agrees is that the status quo isn’t working.