What is emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA)?

How is EBSA different from truancy?

Truancy is a choice to be somewhere else. The pupil could come in and decides not to, and usually seems unbothered about it. EBSA looks very different up close. The pupil often wants to come and physically can’t: the stomach ache that arrives every weekday morning and lifts on Saturday, the panic in the car park, being sick by the gate. That is fight-or-flight doing its job in a body that has decided school is a threat.

The older terms ‘school refusal’ and ‘truancy’ quietly imply a decision. That is why educational psychology services in England moved to ‘avoidance’. The distinction matters because it decides which system a case is filed under, and how the family is spoken to from the first phone call.

How common is it?

In 2024/25, 18.14 per cent of pupils in England were persistently absent, meaning they missed 10 per cent or more of their sessions. Around 176,000 pupils, 2.39 per cent, were severely absent, missing half of school or more (DfE, published March 2026). Not every one of those children is anxious, and absence has many causes.

But NHS England’s 2023 survey found that 20.3 per cent of 8- to 16-year-olds had a probable mental disorder, roughly one in five. Put those figures side by side and a frightened child behind a share of the empty chairs is not a rare event. It is a steady current under every year group.

How do you spot it in the register?

Look at the pattern, not the percentage. A pupil at 89 per cent attendance sits in the amber band and rarely gets a meeting, yet the missing 11 per cent may be the same two lessons every week, the ones with reading aloud or presenting. Whole days off are not the only signal.

• Absences that cluster on particular days, lessons or parts of the morning.
• Physical complaints on school mornings that ease at weekends and in holidays.
• Late arrivals, long toilet visits, avoiding the canteen or corridors.
• A sudden drop in a pupil who has never given anyone a reason to worry, often around Year 7 transition or exam years.

Doesn’t staying at home help an anxious child?

Usually not for long. The statutory attendance guidance says that for pupils with worries about school, ‘being away from school might exacerbate it, and a prolonged period of absence may heighten anxious feelings about attending in future’ (Working together to improve school attendance, July 2026, paragraph 54). Every week away makes the building stranger and the return harder.

That is not an argument for pushing harder at the gate. Pressure on an anxious pupil tends to drive the anxiety up. The work is a slow, planned return in small steps, agreed with the family, which is why early action matters so much: it is far easier at five per cent down than at fifty.

How is EBSA absence recorded?

When a pupil cannot attend because of illness, that includes mental health. The guidance describes the illness code as applying where ‘the pupil is unable to attend due to illness (both physical and mental health related)’, and illness is authorised absence. Anxiety properly understood and recorded is not truancy on paper either.

Your school’s attendance lead decides the codes. If you think a pupil’s absence is being treated as a discipline problem when it looks like anxiety, say so, and bring a concrete pattern rather than a general point: ‘Before we code this as bunking, can we check whether she’s choosing to be out or can’t get herself in?’

What should a class teacher or form tutor do?

Notice, record and pass it on. You are not expected to diagnose or treat anything. If the concern is the pupil’s learning and support needs, anxiety as a barrier to school, the route is your SENCo: persistent anxiety can be a special educational need under the social, emotional and mental health area of the SEND Code of Practice. If you are worried about the pupil’s safety or welfare, the route is your Designated Safeguarding Lead, the same day, with a factual written note. In an emergency, call 999.

Alongside that, a light, specific check-in costs thirty seconds: ‘I’ve noticed you’ve missed a few Wednesdays. No drama, I just wanted to see how you’re doing.’ Flagging early and being wrong costs little. Waiting and being wrong can cost a term.