Working from home makes children think school is optional

Yahoo

20-02-2025

For the 20 million or so Brits who work from home – and happen to be parents – there was an extra issue to contend with this week. Not just that their little darlings were off school for half-term, but the suggestion that their working habits might be having a negative impact on their children.
Sir Martyn Oliver, the head of Ofsted, has said that school attendance rates are being affected by parents working remotely after the pandemic.
'If my mum and dad were at home all day, would I want to get up and leave the house, knowing that they were both there? I would be tempted to perhaps say: 'Can I not stay with you?',' said Oliver, a former headteacher.
'Seeing my dad [a potato merchant] go out early to work often hours before I had even got up, well, there's an expectation: put your shoes on, put your school uniform on and go out the door and go to school, go to work.'
'[After the pandemic] suddenly people were used to working from home and in many cases I don't think there was that same desire to have their child in school while they were at home,' he said. 'They had been used to it for the best part of a year and a half, on and off, during lockdown. That changed something.
'I think developing good social habits of getting up in the morning, putting your shoes on instead of your slippers, going out to work, going to school, expecting to complete a full day's school, a full day's work, clearly that's habit-forming,' Oliver said.
School absenteeism is soaring. Nearly a seventh of primary school children and a quarter of state secondary pupils are now persistently absent, missing at least one day every two weeks, according to government figures. Across England, persistent absences in all state secondary schools rose from 13 per cent in 2018-19 to 24 per cent in 2022-23.
Oliver isn't the first in the sector to point the finger at working-from-home culture. Former education secretary Gillian Keegan claimed that parents working from home on Fridays were part of the reason for higher absence figures on that day of the week.
Laura Gowers, 45, from Whitstable, a former teacher and parent to two children aged 14 and 18, says there's some truth in Oliver's comments.
'Having been a teacher for 23 years, I have noticed a definite change in attitude since the pandemic on school attendance,' she says. 'Some children know that their parents can complete their jobs at home and think they can do the same with a little online learning or homework. However, this is rarely as successful as being taught in person, and having the support from the class teacher with any difficulties they come across.'
But many parents who work remotely were outraged that Oliver was laying the blame at their door for the absenteeism problem. Sophie Hines is a journalist who works from home two days a week. 'The thought that I might nonchalantly agree for one of my kids, who are five and one, to stay at home while I work is hilarious. But also quite annoying, given the levels of stress I've experienced trying to sort emergency childcare when they are off sick.
'Far from kids thinking their parents doss around at home all the time, WFH has pushed things the other way – all children ever see us do is work,' she says. 'I don't think my daughter is under the impression that we're booting her off to school and then returning home to lie in front of CBeebies wearing slippers.'
Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis Multi-Academy Trust, which works to close the gap for disadvantaged children, says that what Oliver says might be accurate for more affluent communities but, in his experience, it's the more deprived areas of the UK that suffer problems with high rates of persistent absenteeism.
'I think it's only middle-class parents who are pulling out their laptops at home and in those cases perhaps it is making some kids think school is optional,' he says. 'But most parents in poorer areas are the ones driving the buses or working in the supermarkets and doing all those jobs that can't be done remotely. So I think we need to look at other reasons why children aren't consistently in school.'
Chalke says that children struggling with persistent attendance are dealing with a whole range of issues, including family circumstances, mental health concerns, bullying, academic difficulties, lack of engagement with the curriculum, transportation issues and SEND (special educational needs and disabilities).
'Sometimes there's just a lack of parental awareness about how important school attendance is,' he says. Indeed, a YouGov poll in 2024 showed that a quarter of parents – 28 per cent – agree that the pandemic showed it was not essential for children to attend school every day.
'We need an Ofsted that's more collaborative and supportive of schools and parents,' he says. 'Parents and whole communities will feel damned by these comments, but being oppositional doesn't help get kids back into school.'
And perhaps seeing parents WFH is no bad thing? Natalie Bell, 44, in York, currently juggles three jobs – as a primary school supply teacher, an admin assistant and a co-founder of the nature-based playgroup Evergreen Exploring. She has four children, aged 4-11 years old, and says that her and her husband working from home has had a positive influence on their family.
'Working from home is inspiring and motivating my children,' she says. 'They see that we love what we do and we work hard, and they are interested in that. Since the pandemic, working conditions have become more flexible and that's a good thing. Working remotely means I can be really present when I pick them up from school and it has led to lots of positive conversations about what kinds of jobs they might want to do when they're older.'
Bell admits that secondary school pupils who were able to learn at home during the pandemic might now be asking 'What's the point in going back?' But she thinks this can be a great jumping off point to talk about the pros and cons of being in person, versus attending remotely.
'Work can now look like so many different things and my children know that they could work anywhere and do anything,' she says. 'It takes a lot of discipline to work from home which is something we should model for our kids. Remote work can be positive if children are part of the conversation.'
Dr Martha Deiros Collado is a child psychologist and author of How To Be The Grown-Up. She says the real question here is: 'Why are so many children struggling to attend school full-time?'
'As a clinical psychologist who has worked for over 20 years with children and families, and has been part of many safeguarding cases with schools, I've found that the majority of children who are school refusers or low attenders have diagnosed or undiagnosed special educational needs or a disability such as autism, ADHD, physical chronic health conditions, educational trauma, or peer group difficulties,' she says. 'It's not surprising to me that home schooling is a growing endeavour, and parents are not working from home when they make the decision to home educate; they are spending their day supporting their children to meet academic targets that will help them be well rounded, educated citizens of society outside of a school system that isn't providing adequate support for their needs.
'Most parents I know do not keep their child off school because their child simply says, 'I want to stay with you', whether they work at home or not,' she adds. 'The parents who feel they have no choice but to keep their children at home are those whose children are suffering in the current educational system – either because the pressure and workload is overwhelming them and they are burnt out, or because of how the social structures at school do not support their emotional and social needs.'
Although Hines says Oliver's comments are 'rubbish' she adds that 'it's a nice change to be told off for the harmful effects of staying at home, rather than the ways in which I'm damaging my kids by going to work! We're always hearing about how much better it was for children in the good old days, when housewives stayed at home to rear their offspring. Except, weren't they setting a terrible example about school attendance, lounging around in their housecoats smoking cigarettes all day?'
Even Oliver accepts that our working-from-home culture won't change, so we need to find new ways of encouraging children to attend school. 'We're still going to have to deal with the fact that there are great things you can do really efficiently behind a screen now,' he says. 'But you can't deny that a child accessing other children, other adults and learning to socialise is a clear benefit of schooling.'
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