English schoolchildren are still missing months of classes
The pandemic is over. Persistent absence is the new epidemic
Before the covid-19 pandemic, Liz Marsh’s daughter seemed to be coping better with debilitating anxieties. Diagnosed as autistic when she was six, she appeared to have found a school that worked reasonably well for her. Over the past two years, however, her problems have resurged. These days the ten-year-old rarely travels to her school in Leeds willingly; some days she simply lies down in their driveway. The problem is not that she doesn’t want to go to school, says her worried mother: “She just can’t.”
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Empty chairs, quieter playgrounds”
Britain April 22nd 2023
- English schoolchildren are still missing months of classes
- A deepening crisis in Scotland’s ruling party
- The first big test of Britain’s voter-ID requirements is imminent
- Britain’s emergency text alert is a signal of something bigger
- Britain’s inflation rate is not falling fast enough
- Britain needs to embrace road pricing
- If English nationalism is on the rise, no one has told the English
From the April 22nd 2023 edition
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