Why the UK’s education system, not the students, needs to change
School refusal in the UK has become one of the most pressing challenges for parents, teachers, and policymakers. According to Action for Children, anxiety-related school avoidance is now the number one concern for parents and carers seeking advice through their Parent Talk service.
Families desperately seek solutions, while being steadily undermined by the media and the Government. This is not a case of poor parenting, or punishing truancy, or frightening families into compliance. Children are signalling that school, in its current form, doesn’t feel safe, relevant, or manageable. If we ignore those signals, we are failing an entire generation.
Why are children persistently absent from school?
Latest government figures show that 20% of pupils in England were persistently absent in 2023/24: a rate almost twice as high as before the pandemic. Severe absence, where children miss at least half their schooling, has also reached record levels, affecting around 170,000 pupils in 2023/24.
This is not a simple problem with a simple solution. Children don’t skip school because their parents need an “awareness course.”
Heather Rhodes, Principal of our partners, Highgrove Education, says:
“Western culture has shifted from being rigid, structured and hierarchical to becoming more individualistic, and prioritising choice, flexibility and well-being. But the school system has been slow to change and has become out of sync with society. While parents work from home in portfolio careers, children go to schools that still expect classes of 20 or 30 children to progress through their education at an identical pace based predominantly on their age.”
If school feels boring, unsafe, or irrelevant, it starts to feel optional. What are the consequences of not going? A fine? A course for parents? None of that creates belonging. It doesn’t make Monday morning maths worth getting out of bed for.
What children and parents say
When asked, children are clear. They don’t miss the travel, the noisy classrooms, the long assemblies, the queues in the canteen, or the unwelcome peer pressure. They want more of what inspires them: sport, friendships, the subjects they enjoy, and teachers they connect with.
Parents, too, saw benefits during lockdown. More time together as families. Opportunities to travel. A calmer rhythm to the day. For children with neurodiversity, sensory sensitivities, or mental health challenges, one-to-one learning at home often felt like a lifeline.
At Tutors International we’ve worked with many families whose children were labelled “school refusers.” With personalised, empathetic tuition, these young people regained confidence and rediscovered a love of learning. For some, that became a bridge back to their old school. For others, the best outcome was never about “going back,” but moving forward with a different model of education.
State school versus independent schools
It’s important to acknowledge that the attendance crisis is most visible in the state sector, where resources are thin and families often have fewer educational options. Attendance rates in independent schools are generally higher, often due to smaller classes or better pastoral care.
But independent schools are not immune. We have seen children in prestigious settings struggle with anxiety, bullying, or the relentless pressure of high-stakes competition. The difference is that wealthier families can fund credible alternatives: one-to-one tutoring, accredited online schooling, bespoke vocational routes. That latitude simply isn’t there for many state-educated families.
The systemic problem
Heather argues that the problem lies not with children, but with the system itself:
“If a system or structure doesn't serve its users, we need deep thinkers who can recognise and analyse the shortcomings and look afresh at how it can be adapted and improved. So why have we been so slow to do this with education itself?”
Mainstream schooling is still designed for last century’s workforce. It prizes conformity and memorisation over adaptability, creativity, and growth. The irony is stark: the very system tasked with creating tomorrow’s changemakers resists the very change it should be modelling.
Heather advocates alternatives such as self-paced learning, project-based curricula, metacognitive skill-building, and teaching entrepreneurship and life skills alongside academics. Highgrove is leading in this space, offering a high-quality online model that reflects these principles.
Private tutoring complements this by taking them further still, designing entirely individualised programmes that move at the student’s pace, adapt to their interests, and allow real-world projects to become part of the curriculum.
Families are choosing alternative education paths
Some families see stepping outside the mainstream as a retreat; something only to be done in a crisis. But we’ve seen rising demand for full-time home tuition as a deliberate choice for a better education - both in academic and emotional terms. Parents describe the relief of flexible timetables, tailored support, and freedom to travel. Children report less wasted time, fewer distractions, and more of what excites them.
One parent told us:
“Max’s anxiety was crippling him in school. Tutors International’s personalised approach helped him not only catch up academically but also develop coping mechanisms. He’s now enrolled in a prestigious engineering programme and thriving.”
Through our partnership with Highgrove Education, families can combine the rigour of an accredited online curriculum with the flexibility and personalisation of one-to-one tutoring. GCSEs, A-Levels, electives, extracurriculars, all can be delivered flexibly, while in-person tutors ensure mentoring, encouragement, and an education designed around the whole child. For some, this is a bridge back to school. For others, it becomes a long-term model of education that is both rigorous and humane.
We can’t solve this with more school of the same kind
What children need is recognition that their refusal is communication, not defiance. The answers have to be empathetic, flexible, and tailored. Sometimes that means rethinking the school environment. Sometimes it means embracing online provision. Sometimes it means bringing in a specialist tutor who can meet a child exactly where they are.
What won’t work are the government’s sticking-plaster solutions, like fines and awareness courses. All of it is aimed at parental compliance, with none of it addressing why school feels optional in the first place.
Education can - and must - look different. Independent schools, private tutors, and online partners like Highgrove prove what’s possible when you treat children as individuals, not statistics.
As our founder Adam Caller often says:
“The one-size-fits-all approach fails children. Education should adapt to the student, whether they’re gifted, neurodiverse, or pursuing a vocational passion, not the other way round.”
If we want attendance to rise, we don’t need to change the children. We need to change the system.
