What is EBSA?
Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) is when a child or young person finds it very difficult to attend school due to emotional reasons, often linked to anxiety. EBSA can affect any child, but it’s especially common in those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), who may experience heightened anxiety or face additional barriers to attending school. Understanding EBSA in the context of SEND helps ensure that the support is tailored, inclusive, and aligned with statutory guidance.
It’s completely normal for children to feel worried or anxious from time to time. These feelings can even help keep them safe or focused in tricky situations. But when anxiety becomes too strong or lasts too long, it can start to get in the way of everyday life. For some children, this might mean struggling to go to school, even if they want to.
If your child has high levels of anxiety and does not want to attend school, they may be experiencing Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA).
Is your child worried about going to school?
It is very important to try to help children and young people overcome these difficulties as soon as possible. Absences mean that children miss out on learning and friendships, making it even more difficult when they come back.
The longer the problems remain unaddressed the more difficult it becomes to change the school avoiding behaviour.
Signs of EBSA
These could include:
- Fearfulness, anxiety, tantrums, or expression of negative feelings, when faced with the prospect of attending school.
- Complaints of abdominal pain, headache, sore throat, often with no signs of actual physical illness.
- Presenting with challenging behaviour, particularly in relation to specific school situations.
- Being socially isolated and avoiding their peer group.
- Experiencing anxiety symptoms that include a racing heart, shaking, sweating, difficulty breathing, butterflies in the tummy or nausea, pins and needles.
- The symptoms are typically worse on Sunday evening, weekday mornings and absent at weekends and school holidays.