When school feels difficult, start here.
If your child is struggling to attend, you may be trying to understand what is happening, support them, speak with school and decide what to do next - all at the same time. You do not have to solve everything today.
Four things to do first.
You do not need a perfect plan. Start by understanding the difficulty and agreeing one realistic next step.
Understand first
Explore what may be making attendance difficult before jumping straight to solutions.
Hear your child
Use their experience to identify barriers, strengths and what might make school feel more manageable.
Talk with school
Prepare clear questions and useful information so conversations stay constructive and focused.
Agree one next step
Choose one practical action, one named person and a date to review how things are going.
What would help today?
Start with the situation that feels closest to what your family is experiencing.
School feels hard for my child
Use a simple parent-and-child conversation to hear their experience, spot clues and agree one manageable next step.
Start a parent-child conversationI have an attendance meeting
Organise your concerns, identify the questions that matter and create a practical preparation sheet before meeting school.
Prepare for my meetingI do not understand the attendance figures
Make sense of attendance percentages, absence levels and patterns in practical terms.
Understand the numbersCould this be anxiety or EBSA?
Explore whether emotional distress may be contributing to attendance difficulty and what may be useful to discuss with school.
Explore EBSA supportSomething at home is getting in the way
Look across routines, practical pressures and patterns that may be making attendance harder.
Map the barriersSchool has sent me an attendance letter
Understand common attendance language, what the letter may be asking you to do and how to respond constructively.
Help me understand the letterStart with their experience, not just the percentage.
Attendance difficulties often make more sense when families and schools look at the whole school day: mornings, travel, lessons, friendships, SEND, anxiety, transitions, fatigue, belonging and what happens after absence.
Useful questions to explore together
My Attendance Support Summary
Turn what your family is experiencing into a clear, constructive summary for school. Include only what feels useful.
What is happening?
Capture what is making attendance difficult, what is going well and what seems to make things harder.
Create my summaryWhat might help?
Record practical support, people who help, what you want school to understand and the next step you would like to discuss.
Open the live summary builderKnow when to ask for wider help.
If attendance difficulty is linked to anxiety, health, SEND, bullying, safeguarding, family stress or another significant concern, the right next step may involve additional professional support as well as the school.
External support
The current Hub highlights Action for Children guidance for parents dealing with school anxiety and emotionally based attendance difficulties.
Visit Action for ChildrenKeep the essential family support free.
The Parent & Carer Hub should stay useful without membership. Membership can then add deeper resources for families who want more structured support, planning tools and specialist guidance.
The Parent & Carer Hub provides information and practical conversation tools. It does not replace professional medical, safeguarding, SEND or legal advice where this is required. Where there are immediate concerns about a child's safety, use the appropriate local emergency or safeguarding services.