Rethinking Attendance: Why School Can Be More Challenging for Autistic Girls

“Every day of school counts” is the central message proposed by the UK government in its recent initiatives aimed at improving attendance in mainstream schools in England. In their Education Hub article, “Why school attendance matters, and what we’re doing to improve it” [1], the government highlights the key belief underpinning the entire campaign: that the only way for children to achieve their full academic potential and protect their future earning prospects is to spend as much time in school buildings as possible.

The article contains several alarming claims aimed at reaffirming this belief, referencing DfE studies that state-educated children with lower attendance rates could earn “£10,000 less at age 28 compared to pupils with near-perfect attendance”, without discussing how to close this gap effectively and ensure beneficial outcomes for children who struggle to attend school. Parents and carers are implored to make “school attendance a priority” and only allow children to stay home when they are “genuinely too ill to attend”, with no guidance offered on what would constitute being “too ill to attend” and only a brief mention of requesting support from the school if your child may struggle to attend due to SEND-specific factors.

Studies have shown that Autistic young people, and especially Autistic girls, face numerous additional barriers in accessing traditional school environments compared to their non-autistic peers and are therefore more likely to struggle with Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA). EBSA is a term used by the scientific community to describe the emotional distress that arises from attending, thinking about, or discussing school and can be debilitating for children who experience it and their families.

It is crucial to remember that these barriers to attendance arise from distress, not defiance; the avoidance of school can be a direct result of nervous system dysregulation and the activation of the body’s acute stress response (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn). In these scenarios, attempting to force a child to continue to attend school while they are in an acute stress state reinforces to the nervous system that school is not a safe place, worsening emotional distress and creating a vicious cycle.

A recent review [2] looked at 10 years of scientific studies related to Autistic girls’ experiences in secondary school highlighted that they face “complex and diverse challenges” that their non-autistic peers do not. Among these challenges, it was stated that the underdiagnosis of girls contributes to a shortfall in accessing support to enable them to effectively engage with learning in mainstream settings. Educators have been found to identify Autistic traits and support needs in girls at a significantly lower rate than in boys, and girls who display similar traits to those of the “typical” presentation of autism must show higher levels of distress in order to access a diagnosis and support.

Other challenges were discussed, such as the structure of typical school environments and how they can contribute to distress. Many high schools have a large number of children; therefore, a significant portion of how the school day is structured relates to safely managing crowds and ensuring effective ‘utilisation’ of the school building [3]. This is the reason why high schools will often move children around the school depending on what ‘stage’ of the day they are at; different lessons take place in different buildings, break times are spent in certain areas, and children must follow their timetabled lessons. This loss of autonomy and increased exposure to transitions and sensory changes can be incredibly difficult for Autistic children to manage, leading to the potential for meltdowns or shutdowns to occur.

It was also found that Autistic girls were far more likely to internalise their emotions throughout the school day, leading them to be perceived as “quiet” or “reserved” rather than in need of support. In direct contrast, girls who displayed external presentations of Autistic traits were similarly excluded from receiving support and were more likely to be branded as “lazy”, “rude” or “disorganised”. Internalised presentations of Autistic traits have been found to be more common among Autistic girls, and biases within both educator expectations and diagnostic criteria contribute to the resulting shortfall in support. These factors are explored in further depth in the Autistic Girls Network white paper Keeping It All Inside [4].

When accounting for these elements, the flaws of the “every day of school counts” approach become evident. Being in school does not necessarily equate to effective learning, and for some children, attending school without necessary support can further perpetuate the cycle of anxiety. These very real, distressing experiences create legitimate barriers to attendance that must be taken into account when discussing systemic initiatives aimed at improving educational outcomes. The fundamental point remains that all children deserve to learn in a way that does not cause them stress and trauma.

It can be incredibly scary for parents and children to be bombarded with information from these initiatives and endure the pressure placed upon them by attendance teams. Policies that promote attendance without acknowledging accessibility barriers create unrealistic expectations and fail to recognise that low attendance for Autistic girls often results from systemic barriers, not from a lack of willingness on the part of the child or their family. Learning cannot take place during times of intense distress, and schools are responsible for making reasonable adjustments to support children who have identified needs.

Children who struggle to attend school are not at fault; they’re in need of support.

Resources used to write this article:

Department for Education, blog post in the Education Hub

Why school attendance matters, and what we’re doing to improve it

Available here: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2025/08/why-school-attendance-matters-and-what-were-doing-to-improve-it/

Literature Review by Urbaniak and D’Amico (2024)

Disability barriers autistic girls face in secondary education: A systematic review

Available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13623613241294189

Book by Dr Naomi Fisher

Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning

Available here: https://naomifisher.co.uk/books/changing-our-minds/

Whitepaper by The Autistic Girls Network

Autism, Girls, & Keeping It All Inside

Available here: https://autisticgirlsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Keeping-it-all-inside.pdf

Bio

Beckie Pilgrim writes about her lived experience through an academic lens as a late-identified neurodivergent woman. She has a particular interest in barriers to attendance within traditional learning environments, having faced these at every stage of her education and, in turn, navigated alternative routes to the ‘expected’ pathway into higher education. She is now completing her BSc (Hons) Psychology degree remotely, with the goal of contributing to systemic change and supporting those who still face barriers to attending mainstream education.