Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance
Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance (EBSNA) is a term used to describe the difficulty children and young people experience in attending school due to emotional reasons, such as stress, anxiety and/ or feeling overwhelmed. This can result in prolonged periods of absence from school.
Research from the Children’s Commissioner found that in the 2022/23 academic year, 22.3% of all pupils were persistently absent from school. In 2018/19, that figure was 10.9%, meaning that rates of persistent absence have more than doubled since the coronavirus pandemic.
Recent research has detailed that the return to school has been increasingly difficult for those children with special educational needs and pre-existing mental health difficulties (Corcoran et al., 2023)
Below are some resources you may find useful:
- West Sussex EBSA toolkit
- Salford EBSA Toolkit
- Manchester Anxiety Based School Avoidance Guidance
- Sheffield EBSA for professionals working with families and young people
- The Huge Bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside (2011)
- What to do when you worry too much by Dawn Heubner (2013)
- Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents by Reid Wilson and Lynn Lyons (2014)
- Anxiety is Really Strange by Steve Haines (2018)
- Starving the Anxiety Gremblin by Kate Collins-Donnely (2014)
- School wellbeing cards by Jessica Holder
Please also refer to the Norfolk training and guidance on working together to improve school attendance: Training and webinars – Norfolk Schools and Learning Providers – Norfolk County Council
