The children refusing to go to school | Four Corners

don't know these children are now being referred to as school refusers a perhaps crude term for kids in emotional stress who can't face being in the classroom it's honestly like a zoo like that's how crazy it is and I just couldn't cope I got bullied every day and my old school make me feel like I was locked up in a cage it's become such a big issue that a parliamentary inquiries underway to look at how to address the problem our children are not robots they are people come on mate we have to try mate we try every day Freddy it's time to go come on let's do it sausage come on can you please hop out we've really got The Perfect Storm adolescent mental health issues On The Rise a teacher Workforce crisis and we've just come out of Co lockdowns I had my parents coming yelling at me telling me that I'm lazy I need to get out of bed all of my energy was just focused on staying alive what have we got here mention of suicidal ideation trigger warning self harm suicide oh they just need tough love if that worked my child would be at school [Music] oh no I'm sure that there will be people there saying to their TV that woman just needs to grow a backbone and tell her kids what's what before it happened to me I was one of those parents it's not like I just want to live my life as a disappointment like I love learning every child is worth something we really need need to address it before we lose a whole lot of kids from the education system [Music] [Applause] [Music] Freddy it's time to go now come on mate hop up please it's time to go Freda chicken herey come on darling please hop up mate it's time to go to school it's a good day today to be at school mom talking out school so much ow ow please don't kick me me you like jelly today come on darling go Freddy come on darling mate we got to get going honey come on we had lots of time this morning to get now it's time to go try right can you bring your bag and cake can you carry this one then please Freddie Fred come on dude come on mate we have to try mate we try every day that's the deal come on let's go please Freddie come on here you go okay we're out of the car is that little sauce I don't know bir no no no no mate it's time to go got to school Freda dude Fred please don't take your shoes off we're going up to the classroom honey I need to go to work Freddie can I just talk to you for a sec I'm going to make I feel like this is probably not going to happen today is it mate all right well let's go home but I have to do some work for a while when I get home okay cuz it's really late it's like 10:00 already there's nothing I can do Mom I'm bored I wish I could play with your chicken but I just have to get this done there's other people waiting on my work hey please don't pull on my chair mate get a bit frustrated when you pull on my chair so I just have to do this okay I want to sit on your lap yeah hey hey hey I need my mouse for W wo wo wo I need that to work chicken ideally I would be sitting down with her and doing some educational stuff but I don't have capacity to do that so she's basically left to her own devices you know I'm trying to keep my job here I've thought a lot about having to do homeschooling with Fred but I I can't afford to if really it started in kindergarten Fred was having trouble like going into school some days we couldn't even get out of the house some days we would get as far as the foot paath and then she couldn't go in and then sometimes you would just run away hey Fred and one term she got down to I think it was it was less than 20% attendance it was very low she was having a lot of trouble partly because Freda masks her autism she does appear like a model student in the classroom but the days that she did end up staying at school she would get home and just fall apart in the early days I would drag her to the classroom door and then her teacher would literally drag her inside and shut the door so she was trapped in there and I'm talking like a 5-year-old child being bodily pulled by a full-grown adult and then separated from their parent with a door that's locked and that traumatized her so much like I'm ashamed of that and I didn't know better I didn't know any better oh they just need tough love if that worked my child would be at school you try the reward charts you try making home boring they don't want want to be here none of the stuff that the experts say you should do Works no this is my crab oh know your crab like that I haven't seen you do the crab dance for a while actually oh my God Kido you make me laugh every single day you see other families their kids just happily going to school and getting to know know each other at school drop off and school pickup and you feel like you're just in this complete other world that's a really lonely and confusing and shameful world because you assume that you're the problem cuz everyone tells you that you're the problem and Fred you know you said to me a few times I just don't know why it's so hard for me I wish it was easy for me like the other kids and that's what you've said all along not that I don't want to go to school I can't it's boring when I don't go to school and and that's why I get a bit upset when I usually don't make it to school cuz I I I really want to but somehow I don't know how to get there yeah the Department of Education talks all about inclusive education every child's entitled to an education but you know they don't seem to understand what autistic kids need what ADHD kids need we found that individual teachers are wonderful and they try really hard but schools they seem to only really cater to this fairly narrow range of brains and kids right and that's a real shame I would much rather her be well than be at school all the time if her having perfect attendance if the cost of that is her mental health it's not worth it it just isn't worth [Music] it this might sound a little controversial might think I've got it round the wrong way but why would kids bother coming to your school in a time where attendance is really shot down after sort of Co we've seen sort of rates really kick down last year K right here when a school attendance problem is emerging we don't necessarily know what type it is maybe it's School refusal maybe it's School withdraw we certainly know from young people who we work with that they talk about the import importance of belonging what we were finding is that more and more young people weren't attending school and we were trying to work out why and it's not just an Australian problem this is something that is happening internationally and it has been researched [Music] internationally we really we don't know how many children and teens in Australia are refusing school and there's been a lot of concern in the community that rates have really skyrocketed since the pandemic Departments of Education don't routinely collect this data but this is critical data it might be that the problem is much larger than than we expect I sometimes think of it like School refusal is a child waving a big flag they're saying I'm not managing I'm not coping and for some their methods of showing their distress can be quite extreme and I've worked with parents have had knives pulled on them by their kids are so desperate so anxious um in the morning um to avoid going to school for the main reason kids miss school this isn't isolated kids here and there it's in every school around Australia from private schools Catholic schools public schools it's across the [Music] Spectrum keep going keep going [Music] I could find it on my phone oh there you go oh there we go so there's 2,199 member requests waiting yeah and what's the longest person who's been waiting yes I can 15 weeks 16 weeks 16 weeks even and I feel a lot of pressure to let them in because you know there's some quite desperate parents in there that that really need the support So we had lots of distressed posts coming through and lots of distressed um parents so much of what actually is underlying that parent frustration is essentially a lot of fear I know certainly in New South Wales for us it was a feeling of almost desperation to get your child to go because you knew that it was actually a legal matter oh my God it's the Lord I'm going to get in big trouble [Music] why is it um what have we got here mention of suicidal ideation trigger warning self harm suicide heartbroken or something to do with legal threats as well it's just non-stop 7 days a week the posts come through where people are just feeling a real sense of urgency about I've got to be at work and my child won't get out of bed he's saying he's feeling like ending his life oh my God what do I do I just find it absurd that the greatest support that the community has out there for this kind of issue is a Facebook group I just actually don't know how long we can sustain it because we all are carrying a huge personal load ourselves and we're working around the clock and I know certainly with my own experience that it's not just the children that end up isolated it's actually the parents as well because quite often you have to quit working to look after your child so all of a sudden your world gets very very small but to be able to step into this Arena where it's like oh my goodness there's thousands and thousands of other people that are going through this it's amazing you all right johy okay [Music] can you read it for me as well um background to the Gaza Israel conflict what are the religions involved I'm pretty sure Jewish Muslim and what was the third they're the two main ones that's the Gaza Strip there and you're going to start writing with your subheadings and eventually you're going to become diplomats and representing the two different groups that are mainly involved so I want best efforts with your writing William's reaction to having to go to school every day it was so extreme lots and lots of crying begging his body would just shake like like a terrified puppy he would try and jump out of the car he he was putting himself in some very very dangerous positions Jake on the other hand he was more silent hiding the uniform hiding a school bag I remember at one point finding him trying to set his uniform actually on fire I just could not believe that this was happening because I had wonderful memories from primary school and the sort of kid that you know I ended up being like School captain and then going on to high school and and having I went to UNI for nearly 10 years you have all sorts of wild Visions like oh my God I'm going to end up with these adult sons living in my basement they're going to be Gamers and on the doll for the rest of their life what's going to become of them would you like a peanut but a sandwich or a cheesy mac or something William he is autistic and has ADHD and huge anxiety he also tested as intellectually gifted so he was a very bright child from kindergarten it was already just like 30 kids all in one classroom one teacher screaming the smells in the bathrooms like it just is crazy like people are just like vandalizing it like throwing toilet paper everywhere it's honestly like a zoo like that's how crazy it is and I just couldn't cope and I was just like man like I honestly can't do this for 13 more years every day like I don't know how to explain but I'd put on like this fake personality where it looked like I was enjoying it and it looked like I was fine but deep down inside like it was just physically draining and just mentally like I just hated it Square hexagon quadrilateral Pentagon do you remember what the tool was that we used to measure angles yeah that's so I guess it is somewhat a little bit lonely I do respect school and like the whole social thing but this is if there was a school that like suited to my needs and like I reckon I definitely could go back but just like like the way the school system is in like Australia it's just I can't he's best I'm not going out there now to embarrassing we had tried everything at the stage we had a psychiatrist on board psychologist OT every professional Under the Sun and um the teachers at his school were so lovely like everybody was trying their best but still my son's attendance it dropped to a certain point where it seemed like it must be out of the hands of the school so then the department actually then handed us a letter threatening legal action [Music] so in the end our hand was forced and we had to withdraw and start homeschooling and this is something that we hear in the school count group all of the time families feeling like they they are kind of forced into homeschooling when I think about it it really pisses me off thinking why should my children be excluded [Music] [Music] I'm always running behind on everything day Fred breakfast so I'm giving you 5 minutes warning that we're going to go to the park in 5 minutes do you understand me help help help help he says while eating a waffle all get ready and then we're going laminate these and we'll take them with us and see if we have any luck so it's just a a scavenger hunt list and it will be with their different senses that covers like Health that covers ethics that'll cover stem um we'll be able to bring in literacy and numeracy so yeah that's the plan for today we'll see how we go the think it's very very child Le for Henry it's dinosaurs he's really interested in them so I try and Source dinosaur themed activities um whereas for Fred he's really into insects at the moment Fred we're putting our sneakers on in one sec please finish a level oh why know H oh oh no FR so I have Henry who is 10 um and I have Freddy who is [Music] six all right let's go see what Henry needs let's go off to the park both of my kids are autistic and ADHD stop stop stop cuz he's on my back can I have stop let go let go walk ahead walk ahead please walk they are homeschooled children hey guys I think there's daycare kids on the Flying Fox hang on and it is not something that any of us want to be doing so guys listen to a bird chirp okay so we got to be silent while we listen for a bird chirp so we can tick that off tell me who you heard one okay you can take that section when we're off the swings oh I heard it too H your hearing's better than mine I was so reluctant and I still am I I don't like doing it it's exhausting I want to be at work I want to be contributing to society I want to be earning an income for my family I want to be setting an example for my kids so says tactile do you know what t means tells and yet I don't have any other choice there's nowhere for my children to go that I can drop them off in the morning and be confident that they will be okay when I pick them up what is another opposite let's try and think of one I'd rather have a kid who is out of the school system and a kid that I'm having to homeschool than a kid who is no longer alive and that was the point where we at what's it off can you tell what kind of bird that means you get it forever that is about all of the formal education that I'm able to get done with my kids on a day when and it's not a great day and there are many many many days like today where what we get done is just the bare minimum and that's part of my worry it is nowhere near enough work that they're getting done there is nowhere near enough learning going on um okay and I really worry that as they get older the longer we homeschool they're going to fall more and more behind and then that's going to make it harder for them to retransition back into the school system which is always been the goal this has never been the we're going to homeschool their whole school lives it's always been an emergency for now measure it just doesn't seem to have an [Music] end that's Fred in his uniform at school and obviously we can see when Fred Finds at home at school that's the sort of thing we get poor Fred like you can't suspend 5-year-old kids it's ridiculous what on Earth is that going to achieve this was Henry the last year that he attended School sad probably the last school photo he'll ever been um Henry has not been at school since June of 2021 do you remember this I dropped him off at school one day and he just broke he was clinging to me he was refusing to go in science and his behavior escalated to the point that it was unsafe he was in complete an utter crisis where did he go at do you want to read it to me there was no one on the student services team who was there that day so no social worker no youth worker no case manager for Henry no school psychologist no school counselor there was no one river rapid and he was removed by ambulance and it was absolutely heartbreaking genius guys so when you put in your registration paperwork for home education you get sent out this auto reply email um explaining moderators are appointed to evaluate the educational program evaluate whether the student is making satisfactory progress H and here we go concerns section 53 provides for a cancellation of home education registration if the child's educational progress is not satisfactory hey we're going to do something for homeschool so have a think if you would like to read a book together or if you would like to do a science experiment agree no but okay m going okay I will come back and check would you like me to stay with you or go [Applause] away so that went well it's been a difficult week cuz I put my formal paperwork in like it wasn't that long ago and all of a sudden like this massive load of anxiety comes on stop okay don't say the word homeschooling out loud this week you have those moments you go gosh I haven't done anything I'm not teaching them they're not learning and now you've received a letter that says you don't do it right you're coming back here and I also says like you thought you got away look at look fist is still here we can still control you at the end of the day you have plenty of evidence that shows you're doing the right thing for your kids thank you go and have a rest enjoy beautiful kids and I'll see you soon oh [ __ ] I'm so scared like what if I [ __ ] this [Music] up I think it's fair to say that the education system is in crisis we've seen a consistent decline of student results we're also seeing attendance rates go down and we're seeing teachers leave the profession in droves and for many of them it's because you feel like you can't help the students in front of you [Music] this is certainly an issue that's really close to my heart as a teacher of nearly 30 Years there' be some in society that would just say oh the kids just need a kick in the pants to get to school all the kicking in the pants isn't going to make any difference because the behavior is out of the child's conscious control there were times during the inquiry that I found listening to the testimony really difficult would you like to take us to take a minute I don't want to know that there are times when you've actually failed students because you haven't had a full understanding of the issue I think it's really difficult for a school education system to understand that it causes trauma um right or wrong and no one intentionally meant for that to happen but it has occurred we heard today that one in four students has some sort of Mental Health Challenge you know increasingly our classroom are becoming more and more complex meeting the needs of individual students doesn't always have to be a complicated um and expensive exercise what's clear is that there is no consistency in how well-being and mental health is addressed uh in schools and within curriculums we pretty much have a one-sized fits-all education system at the moment you know this is the model of Education that we had over a hundred years ago uh the world is very different now young people are very different now and so as long as we continue to do education the way we are large numbers of students just sitting at desks in classrooms I think we're only going to see this problem increase and thank you so much for being here um this is certainly an issue that's really close to my heart as a teacher of nearly 30 years um are really key for us to get as much information as we can to see how we can actually better support students parents this issue and I know from personal experience that it's something is on the good news is that we know that there are things that work early intervention smaller class sizes uh flexible campuses interest-led learning all of these things work to engage young people and get them back into education [Music] good morning deck how are you feeling it's great to see you thanks for coming to school good to see you morning Harley great to see you mate all right let you in oh you've got a new backpack is MD there to open the gate for you morning B morning Daniel welcome to school thanks for coming in Jack Jack to see you mate thanks for coming to school oh here comes Athan oh aan here comes aan morning Ethan morning so good to see you mate yeah they go to school yeah I take you Alterna education for about 12 years I mean I'm just deeply deeply passionate about ensuring that every single child has access to an education all right we'll go this way we have 80 students enrolled and we only have eight students per class so we're incredibly Lucky in terms of how we're resourced all righty morning MADD how you feeling and we do have a weight list at the moment it is very large up to about 100 on a weight because what we do I think first and foremost is create an environment of physical and emotional safety which really enables them to create the building blocks that they need to succeed academically and no child can learn if they don't feel safe so what sound are we listening for a r a rain who would like to come and do that Ethan can you come and point to the sound hey that's right one sound good job everyone say the sounds as you write them when Ethan first started he was quite low in all areas of the curriculum you know he couldn't read you know quite low in maths as well [Music] may now you're quick this morning e good boy he was afraid of work there was a fear of failure and that's actually common amongst many of children because they've experienced so much failure he would literally beat himself up he would bite or pull his ha and he would say I'm so dumb that's the thing that upset him most was that he thought he was stupid can these for me please Dar all right excellent let's go our goal is for them to be able to transition back into a mainstream school and we'll help him go down that [Music] path can I have a go I just ped a chicken Ethan's attendance attending mainstream School wasn't great the struggle started from grade prep I actually went in one day and observed what was happening in the classroom and I was just shocked with how he was treated from the others he was uh kind of pushed to the side so instead of sitting there and writing a sentence like the other children were doing they just said oh just just draw a picture it pushed him further and further away from being able to learn job can do he was becoming more and more disengaged so he would go around he would kick Windows he would break things he would throw things there were times where he even threatened to harm himself CU he didn't want to be there he didn't want to be around that environment anymore I refused to go to my old school cuz it wasn't safe for me I got bullied every day so my old and my old school made me feel like I was locked up in a cage yeah I used to say to you that everyone has to go to school when you used to fight back a lot yeah and used to say I don't want to go I don't want to go and after Co it became harder didn't it yeah so then it yeah got to a point where the he was kind of I suppose put in the two hard Basket in a sense and they said well we don't know what else to do I was really scared for his future you always imagine what your child can be when they get older and I was kind of at a point where I don't know where he's going to be something else about how did you feel about going down the wrong path I felt like I wouldn't actually get a job when I get older I would be homeless to on the side of the V that's all what about now how do you feel I feel like I got hope I got hope more hope in myself the mainstream schooling system just isn't designed to to meet the needs of diverse children and young people and then how a student interprets that is they don't want me here and so it sort of starts this cycle I guess of disengagement and their risk of other Pathways increases significantly they risk of ending up in youth Justice with significant mental health challenges and there's research to show that the cost of that is far greater than the cost of just investing in a child's education even if it does cost more than the average student I might need to go deal with that session if he goes he'll really go so I might move you have we lock the front door okay cool um maybe just come out here cuz we might break a window I would love to just go out there and give him a really big hug yeah cuz sometimes that's what they're telling us they need in those moments is just a little bit of extra care no matter what students do we know that's not a representation of who they are hi hi Hi how are you Billy's very excited to see you is she nice and soft yeah so dog CL tell us with their words how they're feeling they can tell us more with their body No Child Left Behind is definitely not a reality I wouldn't say cuz Ethan was left behind Billy Shake you know when he came here he couldn't read Couldn't Write couldn't do anything and now I couldn't even spell my name couldn't even spell your name but now he's taking on board the learning that he has to the point where he can go back to mainstream school next year I'm proud of myself every child is worth something and that will bring that to society when they get older I mean goodness knows it would have happened you know if Ethan had not have come here [Music] I have to urge you scream into why would you do that that is so weird was so strange morning are you going so good loving life it's a wonderful day 100% 100% 110% actually [Music] hi Christoper morning honey buns haly would you like to bring your daily planner and a pen all right welcome and we are halfway through week four what's week four M I knew that just going super quick yeah I I knew that all right I wanted to touch base with both of you around what this term's project is going to be I'd really like to get all of these I've been going here so almost a full year I was very excited about starting here because I didn't want to have to drop out of school I had like a massive plan for my future but then it was like all ripped away from me because I got unwell here I got like a second chance I guess we get to like personalize our space we get like a desk and like the wall here I have a picture of a cow on a skateboard it's very relaxed here you can like just show up in pajamas which I have done a few times but we don't just come here and get to do whatever we want we do actually have to do work all righty so in relation to empirical reasoning you're looking at researching color theory experiment do you have any sort of hypothesis about what you think might be the outcome of that research so we do Project based learning so it's all based around my interests and we have to show that we've hit every part of the curriculum in that project and I do love learning and it's helped me get back into that I'm just going to paint this term I really like realism yep are there any different mediums you're thinking about exploring or just painting this clay clay yeah definitely at the start I would come for like a few hours a day and not every day a week and now I show up pretty much every single day next year what oh yeah school it's only going to be like two weeks well in primary school I was in the top classes for everything but I started getting depressed in like year five I started not going to school and then I dropped down it's so weird oh my God it kind of got worse I'd start having like a few weeks at a time off of school then last year year 9 my attendance was terrible it was at 7% I would just miss pretty much every single day and I really wanted to get there but I couldn't get out of bed most days I'd lie in my room like just in my bed in the dark doing nothing and then I had my parents coming and like yelling at me telling me that I'm lazy I'm not doing enough I need to get out of bed I got the light turned on like the blinds opened the bed sheets pulled off stuff like [Music] that just going back to the start oops um unjustified absence your daughter has been marked absent for school this absent has been recorded as unexplained or unjustified please explain this absence but you see like 21st of November 22nd of November 23rd of November so you're just getting it every every day and I was thinking she was just being lazy at first and there definitely times where I said to her look you just need to go to school cuz I need to go to work and I was a single dad two kids you know and you're only human and sometimes you you know you lose your temper or you yell or you know or actually which is worse a couple of times she SE me cry and I think that's even worse cuz then the guilt that she gets is a lot worse my school didn't react very well to it and they started like threatening fining us and stuff like that and if you don't pay these fines then you're going to have to go to court yeah I think they told us it was like a 10 or $1,000 fine I think they're trying to scare haly a little bit into you have to come to school it put a lot of pressure on us because we're then trying to push it you know you just have to turn up like you have to show you're trying I just wanted to focus on getting better and getting better enough to want to live but I couldn't because school was such a big pressure and she sort of said I just can't do it I can't get out of bed and she started telling me why with a lot of Tears cuz I have a big fight and then all of a sudden I'm like oh my God this is depression like you know I'm I'm a mental health nurse by trade and have done mental health nursing for years I couldn't believe I hadn't picked up on it so that's when we got psychologists and eventually a psychiatrist and all that sort of thing but it um it took a long time to the school's credit we started talking to the deputy principal and she was excellent so she put a plan in place with Haley she went Anna you're doing everything that you need to do there's no way you get fined I found out she was cutting herself so I saw some scratches to start with on a arms but then she started really prolifically cutting that crushing weight of having to be at school really made it hard you know having a child um doing that to themselves is really hard and working in the industry knowing what the outcomes can be you know we don't report youth suicide rates for a good reason but they're huge so um you know I think most people think oh no that that can never happen I know it does so that that was very hard uh yeah well she'll be coming out in about 2 minutes that's nice being able to come and pick her up from school and yeah have a attending and I can see a future for her well and truly because of this school oh the bottle about to fall out oh did you get your results back for your test minimum standards yeah the minimum standards uh yeah I got four on both of them which is the highest Mar oh you got oh excellent [Music] hi you could say that yes there's a lot more money spent on these kids I suppose for these special school it's a h have a lot more money if she goes to hospital e a d g if schools like this can help get kids well and their productive members of society that's really good I know Haley hates the term School refusal and and I agree with her you know if she was never refusing to go to school she just couldn't do it my attendance is at 85% now I feel very optimistic about my future I know I'm going to get be a psychologist I know I'm going to get a little cottage house and have two cats and the dog and a bird and hopefully a goat [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] if this program has raised concerns for you you can contact one of these services

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 300,774

Keywords: abc news, australian news, abc news indepth, documentaries, long-form journalism, education, investigative journalism, health, early education, children, school, autism, adhd, behaviour, family, parenting, parents, australia, inclusivity, documentary, investigation, schoolrefusal, schoolcan’t, anxiety, student, neurodiversity, school avoidance, school refusal

Id: dSdhuqj04vQ

Length: 46min 50sec (2810 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024