Researchers from Loughborough University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) carried out the study in England and looked at how missing school and issues with mental health are linked.
The analysis, based on a linked dataset of 1.1 million children aged 5 to 16, shows that poor attendance and poor mental health feed into each other, creating a ‘vicious cycle’.
Missing school can harm a child’s mental wellbeing, while poor mental health makes it harder to attend school.
Key issues:
- Absences from school contribute significantly to children experiencing mental health issues (measured as hospital attendance with a diagnosis or stress-related presentation)
- The probability of a child experiencing mental ill health rises from 1.82% with no absence to 3.7% with 20% absence, and to 5.27% with 30% absence
- The impact is greater for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support, chronic health conditions, or an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan
- The relationship is two-way: children with a mental health condition miss almost three times more school (16% of sessions) than those without (6%)
- Having some forms of additional school support — such as EHC plans, specific SEND provision and eligibility for free school meals — appears to be associated with a lower increase in absence among pupils experiencing mental ill health
Loughborough University’s Dr Simona Rasciute, who led the econometric analysis for the ONS, said: "I have been privileged to work with colleagues at ONS through the British Academy Innovation Fellowship.
“This is the first large-scale data linkage initiative in England to connect children’s education and health records with both of their parents’ health records and socioeconomic characteristics, alongside household and neighbourhood factors.
“This innovative work has allowed us to uncover new insights into the drivers of the children and young people’s mental health crisis in England.
“Our research shows a clear feedback loop between children’s school attendance and their mental health.
“When children miss school, they are more likely to struggle with their mental health, and their poorer mental health further contributes to additional school absences.
“Encouragingly, we also found that in children with certain types of SEND support, the impact of mental ill health on absences was less.
“This highlights just how important schools in England are in supporting children’s wellbeing and why we need to learn more about how to reach every child who needs such support.”
The study linked together different data sources, including the 2021 Census, hospital records, school data, and information about household circumstances.
By combining these, the researchers could look for patterns across a very large group of children. Advanced statistical methods helped test whether absence really caused mental health problems, rather than the two simply happening together by coincidence.
Louise Vesely-Shore MBE, from the ONS, said: “This work suggests that absence from school can have a detrimental effect on some young people’s mental health.
“We also found that young people with mental health issues had a higher level of absence from school.
“But for students with mental ill health who received additional support at school, such as Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans, free school meals and SEND support, the increase in absence was lessened.
“More work is needed to understand this better, but clearly schools can play a vital role in supporting some students with mental health conditions.”
The research was undertaken by the ONS Centre for Subnational Analysis, in collaboration with Loughborough University’s Business School, and was funded by the British Academy Innovation Fellowship scheme.
The full article Child mental ill health and absence from school, England: 2021 to 2022 is available here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/therelationshipbetweenchildmentalillhealthandabsencefromschoolengland2021to2022
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