When Inclusion Hurts: For the Children Schools Don’t Yet Know How to Hold

Across England, more and more children are struggling to cope in mainstream school.
Some start each morning in tears. Others endure the day and collapse the moment they get home.
Many are still described as “fine when they’re here.”

Parents are reassured that this is “normal at that age,” that separation anxiety will pass, that the best thing to do is to keep getting them in.

But for a growing number of families, that reassurance no longer feels like the truth.

The Children Behind the Headlines

For the children who are overwhelmed by environments that weren’t built with them in mind.
For the children who seem to “refuse school” but are really refusing pain.
For the children who are praised for their resilience while quietly falling apart inside.

They are not rejecting inclusion.
They are showing us what real inclusion means.

The Problem with “Fine”

“Inclusion” has become one of education’s most overused words - and one of its most misunderstood.
Too often, it’s equated with attendance: being in the building, in the classroom, in the system.

But true inclusion isn’t about proximity - it’s about safety.

It’s about a child being understood, supported and accepted for who they are - not who the system needs them to be.

And sometimes, that means admitting something uncomfortable… not every environment can be made safe. No number of “adaptations” or “reasonable adjustments” can compensate for a setting that fundamentally overwhelms a child’s sensory or emotional capacity.

Having “offers on the table” doesn’t make the table accessible - not if the child can’t even walk through the door to reach it.

Listening to the Signal

When a child starts to struggle, the default response is often to focus on fixing attendance.
Parents are told to make home less appealing, to avoid comforting, to stay strong.
But what if the child’s distress isn’t a behaviour to manage - but a message to hear?

These children are not the problem.
They are the signal - showing us what happens when systems stop listening.

They reveal the limits of an education system built around compliance and resilience, not safety and connection.

They remind us that inclusion without safety isn’t inclusion at all - it’s endurance.
It’s being made to fit somewhere that still hurts.

A Shift in Perspective

While headlines frame this as a crisis of attendance, what we are really seeing is a crisis of safety.
Children are not opting out of education. They are opting out of pain.

Listening to them - and to the families who see what happens when the school gates close - isn’t permissive, it’s protective.

Because when children are given safety, they begin to recover.
And from recovery comes learning, growth, and trust - the real foundations of education.

About Canary SEND

At Canary SEND, we support families whose children can’t access school because their needs aren’t being met - whether through autistic burnout, emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA) or school trauma.

We help parents understand their rights under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996, build strong EOTAS (Education Otherwise Than at School) packages, and challenge unlawful local authority decisions.

Real inclusion begins with listening - and that’s where change starts.