SCHOOL NON-ATTENDANCE RESEARCH 2026

School attendance difficulties are affecting families across the UK, yet there is still a significant gap between what families are experiencing and what is understood about the reasons children become unable to attend school. We hear from families every day about anxiety, unmet SEND, sensory needs, school-based trauma, difficulties accessing support and the enormous impact prolonged school non-attendance can have on the whole family. We wanted to understand the bigger picture.

As part of School Avoidance Awareness Week 2026, we (Sunshine Support) undertook our largest piece of research into school avoidance to date.

As part of School Avoidance Awareness Week 2026, Sunshine Support invited parents and carers to tell us about their experiences of school avoidance, school non-attendance and attendance difficulties.

Between 17 June and 31 August 2026, 1,105 families responded. Following the exclusion of two responses that did not meet the eligibility criteria, the final research sample comprised 1,103 children and their families.

The findings provide an eye-opening picture of what can sit behind school absence - and some may make uncomfortable reading.

• 82.9% identified the school environment as a contributing factor to their child’s difficulties.
• 78.9% reported that distress, anxiety or reluctance was already present before attendance became difficult, while
• 49.8% waited at least a year for their child’s difficulties to be recognised, or said they were still waiting.

Perhaps most strikingly, 92.7% believed that earlier appropriate support could, or might, have helped.

The research also reveals the wider impact on families, including anxiety, financial pressure and parents reducing their working hours or leaving employment altogether.

These findings do not tell us that every child experiences school avoidance in the same way. They do, however, give us an important opportunity to listen to what more than a thousand families are telling us about the barriers their children experienced, the responses they received and what they believe might have made a difference.

This was a self-selecting survey and the findings are not intended to be nationally representative. They are published to contribute evidence and lived experience to the national conversation about school attendance, and to encourage earlier recognition, greater curiosity about what sits behind absence, and appropriate support for children and families.

Download Version 1.0 of the full School Avoidance & Non-Attendance Research Report 2026 below.

Media and research enquiries

If you are a journalist, researcher or professional and would like to discuss the research, request an interview or speak to us about our work around school avoidance and non-attendance, please use the contact form below.

You can also download our full press release here.