Barriers to Education and the WARMTH Framework

Written by Shannon Hatton-Corcoran (Trafford Educational Psychology Service) & Rachel Lyons (Salford Educational Psychology Service)

Overview

Barriers to Education: a compassionate and proactive approach that is for ALL young people. It recognises that declining attendance is the result of barriers impacting upon young people; barriers that often exist long before attendance is impacted. This encompasses:

• Young people who may internalise their distress, meaning their difficulties initially go unnoticed (fawning/masking or freeze response).
• Young people who externalise their distress, who may be at risk of suspension and exclusion with little exploration of the underlying reasons behind this behaviour (fight or flight responses).
• Young people who become disengaged from learning.

This philosophy applies to everyone:

• Families are trying their best, but there are a wide range of factors that can impact on young people’s attendance. Attendance difficulties are often complex and multi-faceted.
• Professionals who are working their hardest often feel limited in what they can do in a schooling/healthcare system that is so stressed.
• Young people are doing the best that they can but there are barriers that are preventing them from accessing education.
• When we look through a lens of Self-Determination Theory, we can focus on listening, understanding and support, rather than using blame and judgement, which can exacerbate stress.
• From this mindset we can address the issues surrounding school attendance with WARMTH.

How this work began

Through our work with autistic young people and their families, the team at Spectrum Gaming (an autistic-led UK based charity), alongside a local Educational Psychologist interest group, began to recognise a gap we were experiencing in our work with children and families, as the current school attendance difficulty (or EBSA) guidance did not appear to be meeting the needs of those experiencing entrenched and/or extended school attendance difficulties and that this was affecting primarily neurodivergent young people. As a result, there are many children and young people with ‘entrenched EBSA’ who have been unable to re-engage with education, where families, schools and professionals feel very stuck.

Over time there has been a growing parent/carer voice (e.g., online, in books), new academic research and increased media interest; attendance is currently a top priority for the Department for Education (and therefore for schools). We recognise the complexities and competing demands this raises, and the reduced funding and capacity within education and public sector services currently. As a result, the Barriers to Education project was established as a way to find a solution to this gap. Our aim is to collaboratively build a toolkit that is supportive for families, schools, and services, is practical and aspirational, and includes both preventative and reactive approaches. The aim is to update the guidance that currently exists, often called the “Emotionally Based School Avoidance” guidance. Although this guidance was an important step to move away from the idea of “school refusal”, we believe now is the best time to update and improve what we do, to better meet the needs of all stakeholders, using the most up to date insight and research.

The Barriers to Education working group is made up of a wide range of multi-agency professionals and experts through lived experience, including a parent community, young people’s group, and a panel of national experts. While primarily based across Greater Manchester, there are representatives from across the country within the steering group.

There are four key acknowledgements that underpin how we approach attendance related difficulties:

1. Young people are internally driven to do well: There needs to be a fundamental shift in how young people are understood, supported and the beliefs around the way they develop the skills they need for adulthood. Changing from the idea of “adults need to shape young people into who they need to be” to “young people are internally driven to do well, and we need to focus on changing the social and physical environment, to enable young people to use their internal drives to meet their full potential”. Self-determination theory is a helpful way to understand how to support young people to feel intrinsically motivated, through considering the psychological requirements we need to learn and develop (autonomy, competence and relatedness; Deci and Ryan, 2017).

2. We need the right approach for ALL young people: Often there is a “standard pathway”, then an adapted pathway for people who have an identified need or diagnosis, such as being autistic. This implies that the “standard pathway” works for everyone and that certain people need a different approach. However, the evidence suggests that if some young people are struggling with the “standard pathway”, this doesn’t mean it is just those with identified needs who require an adapted pathway. This shows that the pathway is not meeting the needs of all young people, but you see the impact of this the most in young people who have a higher level of need. The number of young people it isn’t working for is also remaining stubbornly high, with 18.4% of young people persistently absent from school over the 2024-25 academic year (Department for Education, 2025). We believe a shift is required in how all young people are supported, so that everyone has their needs met and can thrive.

3. The right support, in the right place, at the right time: It is important to recognise that if a young person is struggling to attend school, the onus to change should not be on them:

a. Pushing young people back into school too quickly can increase struggles, not reduce.

b. The majority of the time, the social and physical environment need to be changed to enable a young person to access learning.

c. Sometimes, young people need time and support to process negative experiences and recover. A focus on wellbeing first supports them to re-engage with learning, rather than a rapid return to school, which can do more damage if not well timed.

d. The UK schooling and SEND systems are under huge pressure. This creates ongoing challenges for the wellbeing of both children and staff, reducing retention and flexibility within the workforce. There is also a national cost of living crisis. This has huge challenges and means that there are ongoing challenges with young people’s needs being met in a school environment, and with school staff feeling supported.

e. Even if school staff recognise better ways to support young people, there are so many stressors, pressures and demands, that moving towards this better way of working may not feel possible.

f. There are other countries such as Estonia who have education systems that work completely differently, and manage to better meet young people’s needs.

4. Recognising the purpose of education: While the quality of education in the UK is measured through grades, it is important for us all to stay mindful that education is more than just grades. Education happens through everything we do; experiences, connections we make and what we learn inside and outside of the classroom to support engagement with learning (wherever learning occurs) and readiness for adulthood (Heyne et al., 2024).

The WARMTH Framework

Through our work we have developed the WARMTH Framework - the 6 foundations to reduce barriers to education. This framework intends to not just be a reactive way of working when young people start struggling to attend school. It is proven that we need to get the approach right before young people start struggling, in order to reduce the amount of people who struggle. Therefore, the majority of the work we are developing aims to be incredibly proactive. We have created a tiered framework shown in the image below (Kearney, 2016), the guidance will cover preventative whole school approaches alongside what to do when children and young people struggle to attend school or have been unable to attend school for some time.

Wellbeing First: The understanding that young people are at their best when we prioritise their wellbeing. Focusing on wellbeing, not attendance, is the best way to both improve school attendance, but enable learning.

Affirming Practice: Practice underpinned by the understanding that everyone is different and that acceptance of difference ensures equity for all. Everyone is different, and this difference is part of natural human variation. This means it is important to move towards using an approach that accepts and accommodates for all differences, whether young people have a diagnosis or not.

Relational Approach: Adopting a relational approach doesn’t mean having no rules or expectations. It is making the recognition that behaviourist practice (looking at behaviour and not the underlying reasons behind it) is not the best way to create an environment where young people feel safe, can learn and have “good behaviour” - and that there are ways of supporting young people that work better for everyone. A relational approach means supporting young people from a foundation of trusting relationships and addressing the underlying reasons behind observable behaviours.

Mutual Support and Partnership: Working together in collaboration to achieve the best outcomes for young people. There is often a lot of tension between schools, families and other services when things feel very ‘stuck’. This part of the framework is about how we can work together, with the knowledge that we are all working together to try and achieve the same thing: the best possible outcomes for young people.

Timely Response: Identifying and responding to the problems that young people face at the earliest opportunity, providing the right support at the most effective time. It is important to give young people and their family members information, knowledge, support and tools before any struggles are experienced. Professionals must take family concerns seriously and act quickly. The quicker support is offered when concerns are identified, the less likely young people will reach crisis/ experience long term attendance difficulties.

Holistic Support: Attendance has always been a symptom rather than a cause, a manifestation of complex issues across the education system and beyond (Burtonshaw & Dorell, 2023). We need to take a whole family/ wider service approach, exploring and addressing young people’s needs across all facets of their life, reducing silo working by supporting services.

What is next?

In order to make the new guidance accessible to all, the Barriers to Education team have creating a website which is available here: https://barrierstoeducation.co.uk/. The website contains the case for change (why we need a different approach), detailed sections on each area of the WARMTH framework, burnout and burnout recovery, and practical strategies and resources. The aim is to create a wider community to coproduce further guidance and support for professionals and local authorities, through a series of good practice case studies. It is hoped that through this novel approach to school attendance, we can all do more of what works, more effectively meeting the needs of all children and young people, and reducing the barriers to education for all.

It is recognised however, that guidance alone won’t be enough to create or sustain change within local areas, so alongside this, members of the Barriers to Education team are working with colleagues on a number of linked projects:

EdPsychEd: Members of the Barriers to Education team have met regularly with colleagues at EdPsychEd to collaborate on dissemination of the project, via blog posts and co-production of content for the EBSA Horizons online course for families, school staff and wider professionals. This blog is the first in a series to run throughout the autumn term 2025.

NAPEP (National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists) - Developing a National Best Practice Paper. A workshop series (November 24 to March 25) brought together Educational Psychology Services to share practice and capture developments nationally. A working group has encouraged the creation of regional interest groups, and brought together the workshop information, alongside recent doctoral research, to create a resource specifically for Educational Psychology Services offering direction on how to shape local guidance. To join your local interest group please contact the regional NAPEP leads for your area.

North West Barriers to Education Interest Group: The team have worked with a group of EPs and interested professionals across the North West of England to embed the WARMTH Framework in practice and share examples of good practice. This has included contributions to local guidance and training around Barriers to Education, including use of the WARMTH Framework in parent/carer sessions and training for school staff.

The Barriers to Education project has also recently been included as an ‘innovative approach’ good practice case study within the Child of the North and the Centre for Young Lives’ ‘An evidence-based plan for improving school attendance’:
Child of the North 2024/25 Campaign - Report 10 - N8 Research Partnership

References

Bond, C., Munford, L., Birks, D., Shobande, O., Denny, S., Hatton-Corcoran, S., Qualter, P., Wood, M. L., et al (2024). A country that works for all children and young people: An evidence based plan for improving school attendance.

Burtonshaw, S., & Dorrell, E. (2023). Listening to, and learning from, parents in the attendance crisis. Public First. See https://www. publicfirst. co. uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/ATTENDANCE-REPORT-V02.pdf.[Google Scholar].

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Publications.

Department for Education (2025). Pupil attendance in schools. Week 28, 2025. Available from: Pupil attendance in schools, Week 28 2025 - Explore education statistics - GOV.UK

Heyes, T., Smith, J., & Brown, K. (2024). Understanding school engagement and avoidance in neurodivergent students. Routledge.

Heyne D, Gentle-Genitty C, Melvin GA, Keppens G, O’Toole C and McKay-Brown L (2024) Embracing change: from recalibration to radical overhaul for the field of school attendance. Front. Educ. 8:1251223.

Kearney, C. A. (2016). Managing school absenteeism at multiple tiers: An evidence-based and practical guide for professionals. Oxford University Press.