Evidence, Impact and Actions for Consideration 2024-26 report: What do learners say about attendance?
One of the ‘actions for consideration’ in Improving Attendance: Understanding the Issues (2023), suggested that children and young people’s views should be at the centre of refreshed attendance approaches. Below is a collection of opinions and views offered directly by learners which ascertain their own beliefs around current reasons for non-attendance.
Quality Improvement (QI) posters
Learners involved in the Education Scotland QI programme mentioned that barriers that discourage them from attending school were:
- family issues (e.g. lack of routine, no boundaries or consequences)
- health and wellbeing issues (e.g. social and emotional needs, sleep issues, health conditions)
- toxic relationships with friends and school staff
- school environments (crowded, overwhelming)
Child Poverty Action Group
The Child Poverty Action Group’s (CPAG) Young People’s Summit in autumn 2025, supported by Education Scotland, captured and analysed young people’s perspectives on school participation. Young people indicated that there remain several challenges to school participation:
- cost pressures (trips, uniforms, food, clubs)
- practical constraints (early start times, study space)
- meaningful follow-up by adults when young people are asked for their views
These perspectives demonstrate strong consensus that work is still to be done to improve school participation, equity and engagement.
Pupil voice evidence from Young Scot - YSAttain
Reasons for non-attendance given by learners are very similar to those given by participants in Improving Attendance: Understanding the Issues (2023) and other publications. Learners who were consulted by Young Scot for the YSAttain report (2025) mentioned that although they often contribute to decision making around attendance, they noted that their voices are not always heard. Learners stressed that staff should engage in the communities where learners live to better understand local circumstances.
Quarriers (2025) School Attendance Engagement Report
Insights from learners interviewed by Quarriers (2025), highlighted that attendance work must distinguish disability and mental health from disengagement and that a nurturing, wellbeing‑focused ethos outperforms punitive approaches. Learners noted that key barriers to attendance included:
- low self‑confidence
- mental health challenges
- caring responsibilities
- learning disabilities
- other competing distractions
Learners also caution against ableist assumptions that equate attendance with personal worth and they identify poverty and wider inequalities as major, often overlooked, drivers of absence. Together, these perspectives suggest that context‑aware, compassionate and youth‑informed strategies could be the most effective route to improve attendance.
