04/01/2026
A reminder of the amount of sensory & executive functioning that is required to get to school for a lot of children, especially neurodivergent ones.
Just for one moment, read whilst thinking about the physical & emotional feelings it describes. Imagine it as your reality, digging deep every day, trying to appear ‘normal’ & piling on the overload as the day goes by.
Honestly, could you function? Or would you start to feel everything was too much & “refuse”?
Would you want to remove yourself from the ongoing situation to alleviate the stress & emotional pain? If you did that are you protecting yourself or refusing?
Coming from an emotional regulation stance not only helps the child but also helps the way the day could be shaped.
It also would help you even if you’re not neurodivergent…just saying 💁🏻♀️
Calm & connection first 🫶🏼 & understanding that success may not be what you envisage or expect 💁🏻♀️ but how we frame our language about how we describe why we see is crucial.
When school attendance is hard (and why “school refusing” gets it wrong)
One of my children, Number 2, has struggled with low school attendance. It’s often labelled as school refusing, but that phrase has never sat comfortably with me.
Because this isn’t about refusal.
It follows a pattern. For him, attendance becomes harder in late autumn and winter, then gradually eases as spring approaches. By summer, things are usually fine again. That tells us something important straight away.
What looks like refusal is actually about sensory processing and overwhelm.
For Number 2, reduced daylight and the sheer volume of things to process first thing in the morning make attendance feel impossible. Not because he don’t want to go, but because his nervous system is already overloaded before the day has even begun.
Getting out of bed is a sensory task.
You have to wake up, shift from sleep to alertness, process light, sound, temperature, and movement, and then leave the warmth and safety of your bed for a colder room. That sudden temperature change alone can be dysregulating.
Next comes washing and getting dressed. School uniforms are rarely chosen for sensory comfort. Fabrics can be scratchy or stiff. Clothes can feel too tight, too loose, or simply wrong. Knowing you’ll have to wear something uncomfortable for the next nine hours adds another layer of stress, especially when your body and brain haven’t caught up with the day yet.
Then there’s breakfast. You know food matters. You know you should eat. But when your system is already overwhelmed, the idea of food can make you feel nauseous. Being pushed to eat can tip things further.
After that comes organisation.
Packing a bag, remembering equipment, planning ahead. If executive functioning is a challenge, this can feel enormous. The fear of forgetting something and being told off or judged at school sits heavily in the background. You’re not careless. You’re overloaded.
Then there’s the journey.
Bright lights. Noise. Crowds. The awareness that your clothes don’t feel right. The creeping worry that you’ve forgotten something important. You already know how this will be interpreted. Poor attitude. Lack of effort. Another consequence.
Before the school day has even started, you are behind.
At some point, the nervous system does what it is designed to do. It protects you. And for some children and young people, that means staying in bed because the demand feels too great.
And here’s the part that often gets missed.
Number 2 actually likes school.
He enjoys learning.
He has friends.
He is exactly the kind of pupil schools often say they want.
But the system prioritises the wrong things. Tucked-in shirts. Equipment checks. Compliance. Attendance figures. It forgets to value the effort it took just to arrive.
This isn’t refusal.
It’s attendance difficulty rooted in sensory processing and nervous system overload.
In our learning support department, we start from that understanding. We welcome pupils and let them know we are genuinely glad they are in school. We meet them in reception. We walk with them to where they need to go, or they can come with us to the learning support rooms. They might talk, play a game, or spend time with Nellie, our department dog.
We help them organise their bags. We walk with them through busy corridors. We make sure they know they can come back at any time if they need us.
Because relationships, safety, and feeling understood come before attendance data.
When we change how we understand attendance difficulties, we change how supported children feel. And that changes everything.
Emma
The Autistic SENCo
♾️
Photo: Writing out a stave, treble clef and the the key signature of D major for a pupil.
