The tragedy of Scottish children who just disappear between primary and secondary

Many of the children who fail to turn up at secondary school are no longer being helped by attendance officers because of cutbacks, leaving them ripe for exploitation

Way back in 1918, the Education (Scotland) Act introduced free secondary schooling and, in 1973, the leaving age was raised to 16. Many of us remember the change moving from primary to secondary, from being the biggest fish to a minnow once more.

It’s always been a key transition, one that education, youth workers and parents understand as a challenging point in a young person’s life. Schools also try to make it less stark, more seamless, introducing children to secondary school over a period of time.

There’s a small group of children whose formal education stops at those last days in primary. Some experience anxiety or emotional distress and become school refusers. Others just never appear. These are not children who are excluded from school, they just aren’t there.

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Sometimes unnoticed among the children starting secondary school are primary classmates who are, for a range of reasons, no longer turning up (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images

Ripe for exploitation

For some, their parents are overwhelmed with the challenges of getting their teens to school. Sometimes, older siblings or friendship groups become a greater draw. For these children, their education goes no further and, for some, a different schooling begins.

These are not home-schooled youngsters, with a concerned parent setting out a curriculum on a computer. These are kids whose lives have no structure, whose time online is often about rivalry and who are ripe for exploitation.

We see these children’s journeys outlined in background reports in court cases, sometimes at the most serious end. People shake their heads knowingly and agree that “it was always going to end up here”, for when the children were not in school, there were always other ways of getting rid of youthful exuberance – on rooftops, in abandoned buildings or in conflict with others just like them.

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The people they meet are not PE teachers or geography tutors, but those in policing, children’s reporters, and lawyers. In years past, attendance officers would engage with families and work out strategies to improve their outcomes.

The very best attendance officers had close, trusting relationships with families and could turn young lives around. Finance and other pressures now mean there are often few – if any – attendance officers to do meaningful work with children who, in truth, often may not contribute positively to attainment stats.

Tragic consequences

At the heart of our work should be prevention. We’re all so harried, so driven, so consumed by the big things we’re tasked to deliver that some children fall through the cracks. There’s no doubt the pandemic shifted the tectonic plates in relation to school attendance, but wringing our hands and admiring the problem won’t address this new (old) reality.

Scotland is littered with ‘pilots’ to address this small cohort: from entrepreneur Jim McColl’s now-closed Newlands Junior College, which provided vocational training and a guaranteed apprenticeship, to dedicated people in local authorities trying their best with limited funds.

We argue over budgets and balk at the idea of investing significantly in a small number of young people – until something goes tragically wrong. That’s the paradox of prevention: its success is invisible, its absence painfully clear.

We need the courage and foresight to act before the headlines, before the court reports, before lives are lost to systems that failed them. As a country, we must find the vision to invest in what we won’t see – because by the time we do, it’s far too late.

Karyn McCluskey is chief executive of Community Justice Scotland