Hiding in Schools – Why do some students attend school but not class?

Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) captures a range of behaviours reflecting a young person’s reduced or non-attendance at school. EBSA not only captures those who do not attend school completely but also those who are not going into classrooms, are not staying in classrooms, are not attending some lessons, or are avoiding particular places or settings in school. In this talk, Nathalie and Laura will discuss their findings from national and local level data from young people and school staff to explore why some students struggle to go into and stay in the classroom. They will discuss the importance young people place on developing positive student-teacher relationships, the lack of clarity around existing school policies for supporting EBSA, and the need to co-develop strategies to support young people to re-engage with education. Nathalie and Laura will also speak about their next steps in exploring subgroups of young people (including those who are bullied and those with additional needs) to identify who is most at risk of hiding in schools and how they can best be supported.

This talk is part of a webinar series from the Centre for Educational Neuroscience at UCL, Birkbeck University and the UCL IoE. You can register here to receive weekly updates about the seminar series.