Red Flags: Signs of School Avoidance to Look For
Most young people are occasionally reluctant to go to school or are anxious about certain activities. School avoidance, however, is a more persistent and long-term problem that might be characterised by a pattern of tell tale behaviours. As educators constantly observe their students and may often be the first professionals to notice a pattern regarding school avoidance, educators must be attuned to noticing children and young people who may present with some of the following behaviours.
There are also increased reports of school avoidance being displayed as ‘classroom based avoidance’ in schools, where children and young people will attend school and stay on the premises, but will not attend class.
Acting out can be a symptom of anxiety (school avoidance) in a child because some anxious children feel an overwhelming need to get out of a situation that’s making them anxious. Their behaviour may look like anger or defiance, lashing out, throwing tantrums, seeming distracted, moving around a lot, or arguing with others.
Good Practice Tip: Creating a purpose (positive reinforcers) for being in school can be helpful. For younger children, staff may create a specific task or duty they need to be present for or a ‘returnable object’.
The Impact of Feeling Safe on Learning
The area where our brain processes emotion (amygdala), particularly in response to fear and threat, interacts with the area which is responsible for learning (hippocampus). Together, they keep us safe. When the amygdala senses a threat (such as bullying, embarrassment or being given out to), it triggers our ‘fight or flight’ response, and the hippocampus creates a strong memory of the event, helping us learn and respond to similar threats in the future.
The term ‘neuroception’ is used to describe our continuous automatic instinct to scan our environment, both inside and out, to determine whether we are safe. Children and young people’s neuroception is heightened at the start of the school year as they are placed in new environments and classrooms. When everything is unfamiliar, even the most confident children and young people experience a state of heightened vigilance.
Research shows that the fight or flight response continues to be activated until a child or young person’s safety needs are met. Students with positive past experiences will remain vigilant until their expectations of those good experiences are confirmed. Students with negative past experiences expect more of the same and withhold trust until we convince them otherwise. Children and young people are more likely to learn well in classrooms in which they have a sense of connection, support and psychological safety – i.e., the social learning environment is a safe place in which to experiment, make mistakes and correct misconceptions.
Additional Resources
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a psychological theory developed by Abraham Maslow. By applying this valuable framework in educational settings, it can help educators better address the needs of students and create an environment where students are more likely to succeed.
Wheel of Emotions
A wheel of emotions is a diagram or illustration that shows levels of emotions to help children and young people identify and understand their own or other people’s emotions. This tool makes it easier to understand and express how we are feeling. This might not be necessary for more straightforward emotions (such as happiness or gratitude), but the wheel comes in handy for more complex emotions linked to school avoidance.