How poverty makes it harder for children and young people to go to school

Since the pandemic, the number of young people missing school has increased by almost two-thirds. On average, pupils now miss 14 days of school per year, rising to 21 days for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Watchtower Project aims to get children and young people who are severely and persistently absent from school to increase their attendance. The project began in November 2022 in Middlesbrough before expanding into Doncaster, Salford, Stoke-on-Trent, and Knowsley after the first year. 

When a school recognises that there’s a problem with a young person’s school attendance, they get in touch with the Watchtower Project to ask for our team’s help.  

“Our job is to build a positive relationship with every young person we work with, find out about the issues they’re dealing with, create an individual action plan with each young person based on their needs, and work with them to try get them back into school,” Rachel explains. 

What issues are you seeing that are preventing young people from going to school? 

“Poor mental health can make it hard for a young person to go to school. Anxiety, bullying, self-harm, and long waiting lists for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) can all contribute to a young person missing school,” says Rachel.  

Bed poverty and a lack of adequate housing 

“We’ve also seen children and young people who haven't been attending school because of poverty related issues,” says Rachel. “One of the problems we’re seeing is that young people aren’t getting good sleep because they don’t have a bed.  

“We’ve dealt with about 10 cases – that we know of – where a young person doesn’t have a bed. When we’re working with children and young people and find out that bed poverty is affecting them, it does come with a bit of a stigma. Parents don’t want to say that their child doesn't have a bed, or that their children are sharing beds, because they are concerned about any consequences from their local authority or children's social care,” she says. 

“Access to adequate housing is quite a serious issue for us in Stoke,” says Watchtower Project mentor, Deb. “We work with quite a lot of families where siblings of different ages are having to share bedrooms or sleep on sofas, which also impacts on young people’s sleep.” 

“We've been working with families who have been made homeless and who haven't got the money to get into a suitable property because they can't afford deposits, so they’re left with limited options. Quite often, the local authority housing offers are too far away from children’s schools as well, so they also end up having to move schools,” Deb explains. 

Travel to school is too far and expensive 

Getting reliable transport to and from school is another issue that impacts on children’s school attendance – whether that’s because it’s too expensive for children to get to school, the distance is too long between home and school, or a combination of both.  

“There are other barriers that are more difficult to address, like transport which can be expensive for young people who don’t live close to a school,” says Alexander. “Young people might rely on getting a lift to school, but if that person who usually gives them that lift isn’t driving that day, they wouldn't go in.” 

Unaffordable school uniforms 

“Parents not being able to afford school uniforms is another big issue – we were working with one young person who was sharing a pair of shoes with her mum so when her mum was at work, this girl couldn't go to school because they weren't allowed to wear any other shoes,” says Rachel. “It took over six weeks before that girl’s mum was able to open up and tell us about what was going on and we were able to buy a pair of shoes for her daughter after that.” 

“I was working with a young person who only had trainers because their mum couldn't afford to get them some new school shoes,” explains Alexander, “but the school thought they were just rebelling by wearing trainers. We were able to provide them with new shoes and some other bits for their uniform and then they weren't getting in trouble or getting excluded.” 

Not having enough food to eat 

“Another thing that we've seen having an impact is not having adequate food in the family home,” explains Emma, the Children’s Service Manager for our Steps to Success mentoring programme. “Young people might not be eating very much before going to bed or might be going to bed hungry which definitely impacts on the quality of sleep that a young person needs.” 

Julie, another Watchtower Project mentor, agrees: “The lack of food issue is quite a big one. Sometimes that can be caused by a delay in benefits payments. I've worked with quite a few families where there's been some delay in their benefits claim which means there’s confusion about their children being able to continue to get free school meals.”  

Lack of access to the internet and technology 

“Most kids do all their communication with their friends over the internet,” says Deb, “so children who don’t have Wi-Fi, phones, online gaming systems, or computers at home go into school and they can be totally out of the loop with their friends because they don't know what's gone on the night before. I've seen it so many times when kids become isolated from their peers because they're not involved in that online socialising.” 

“If a young person’s home hasn't got Wi-Fi, they're likely relying on mobile data and once that data runs out it can be really hard,” adds Emma. “It can also be a problem when parents whose children aren’t attending school for whatever reason are told by the school that they should be putting boundaries in place with their children so that they aren’t on their phones or gaming systems when they’re not at school. Those devices are then often taken away from them and if they're out of school for a prolonged period, that can heighten their feeling of isolation which can turn into a fear of returning to school,” she says. 

What advice would you give a parent who's worried about their child’s attendance? 

“If you’re struggling financially and it's impacting your children, my advice would be to find one person who you feel comfortable opening up to at your children’s school about what’s going on,” says Emma. 

“I think the hardest thing for a parent is to be open and transparent with the school about the real reasons why their child isn’t going in. Quite often there are other reasons that are given, like their child’s got a headache or they feel sick, and normally that can go on for a long time before they get to a point where they're open about the actual reasons why their child is missing school. Sometimes, it can take as long as 6-12 months of poor school attendance before we find out what’s really going on,” she says.  

“Having a positive relationship with your child’s school can really help if you’re in a difficult financial situation, but that's not always easy. Quite often, parents whose children are having trouble attending school have already been fined, which adds to the financial crisis that they're dealing with. That’s where we come in and try and build those bridges between schools and families,” says Emma. 

“A lot of parents won't ask for help if they’re struggling with poverty because they think it means that they’ll be accused of not being able to care for their children,” says Deb. “One of the first things I always tell parents is that it’s absolutely fine to get as much support as you can from where you can.”