Harvey Willgoose’s mum wants the Government to help ‘school avoiders’ like her son, after she was ‘shocked’ to find out 20 per cent of children were not attending school every day as they might not be ‘naughty’
Harvey Willgoose’s mum said her son wept, “I’m trying my best but nobody understands me”, as he pleaded with them not to send him to school just days before he was murdered.
The desperate 15-year-old sent his family TikToks showing other children crying, with a caption saying: “They don’t understand. I can’t go to school.” Caroline Willgoose, 51, is now urging the Government to tackle the growing problem in the UK with “anxious” children like Harvey, who became a ‘school avoider.’
“These are not naughty children. They just cannot cope with school,” she told the Mirror, explaining how her son only went to school 20 days in five months. It comes after she found out Harvey had died after seeing as ‘RIP’ message on social media.
Figures show that around 22.3% of pupils in the academic year 2022/23 were persistently absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of their school sessions. It is believed Covid and the extended absence from school may have exacerbated ‘Emotionally-based school avoidance’ (EBSA).
READ MORE: Mum of Harvey Willgoose, 15, stabbed to death at school posts urgent Facebook appealREAD MORE: Harvey Willgoose’s sister says her ‘heart is broken’ after brother, 15, stabbed to death in school
“Children have been forgotten. They have a voice and need to be listened to. The Government needs to get to the bottom of this,” she said.
She explained how teachers from All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield would visit Harvey at home trying to convince him to come back. “Every 10 days teachers would turn up to see if he was still alive and try and get him to come back to school. He’d lost a hell of a lot of weight. Because he used to be quite a chunky kid when he was at primary school.
“They’d talk to him, but sometimes he wouldn’t come downstairs, they’d have to go through his bedroom. He’d pretend to be asleep. One said; ‘Get up, you’re coming to school’, but he blanked them. It was as though he blocked it out.
“They used to say, you’re going to get them criminal records, you are going to get them fined. ‘Do you want your mum and dad to have a criminal record? Do you want them to get fines?’ And he’d say ‘no, I don’t’.
“This went on for about 18 months. I used to say ‘is somebody bothering you, are you being bullied?’ and he’d just say, ‘do you think anybody would bully me? He was very proud’.
“He used to send me all these TikToks of these kids crying in the bedroom, saying, ‘they don’t understand I can’t go to school’. My mum found him crying in his bedroom a week before, and he said: ‘I’m trying my best but nobody understands me’.
“I remember him sending me one TikTok and it was a young girl just crying in her bed, it was with music, just crying and just saying in writing, ‘They don’t understand I can’t go to school’.”
“I feel so guilty. We made his life a misery, we had teachers coming into his bedroom and he used to say ‘you don’t understand I can’t go to school’. But I didn’t know any different and then found out I wasn’t alone and this was happening to 20% of children.”
On Friday, a 15-year-old boy was found guilty of Harvey’s murder after a month-long trial and will be sentenced in October. The jury heard from Harvey’s teachers, who spoke fondly of Harvey, describing him as “cheeky” but “respectful”.
One of his teachers had even invited him to join her for lunch but tragically he declined and was stabbed twice in the courtyard, one wound piercing his heart.
Harvey begged his parents not to make him go to school, sending a message to his dad days before his murder when the school was put into lockdown when he wasn’t there, saying: ‘This is why I don’t go to school dad, people have knives’
Tragically Harvey was murdered on the day his family finally persuaded him to return to school.
The prosecution told his trial at Sheffield crown court Harvey’s mum contacted the authorities in May 2024 “expressing her concern that since around September 2023 his behaviour had started to change, he’d been going missing and was losing weight.“
Richard Thyne KC told the jury: “…Records show that there were some concerns around his mental health.
“His parents had had real difficulties getting him to school – he had sometimes become aggressive with them when they had tried to encourage him to go to school, and – as I have already said – his school attendance record had become poor.“
Caroline stressed how her son was very gentle but the only time he got aggressive it was over going to school. “The only time we argued was about school. It was just a constant battleground,” says Caroline.
“He was never aggressive, just when it was about going to school. We were all so miserable. Harvey wanted to be a bricklayer and had been trying to get a job, He was offered one but was too young. School is not for everyone,” she said.
Caroline has had parents contacting her after being threatened with a criminal record. Parents can be fined £2,500 and jailed for three months.
About Harvey’s problems, she said: “I think it’s all down to Covid, he was nine years old and went from this tiny school and plonked into this great big school. He had 20 per cent of his childhood taken from him like many kids did. He couldn’t go and see his grandparents, go to the park, see his friends, they were just locked up for two years and that’s where all this is coming from I think.
“We were just living in this horrible time where I’m trying to get him to school, worried to death about him, and he just won’t go to school. It just gradually got worse.
“He had no problems in primary school but then it was Covid and then he was in big school. It’s like they came out blinking from Covid and then had this scary big school to go to. Before there was only one class per year and two of his aunties worked there. Then he has to go get tram on his own well with his friends
A Department for Education spokesperson said they “inherited a broken school system” but say the rate of severe absence is slowing.
But they agreed there is “more to do” which is why they are rolling out free breakfast clubs and improving mental health care.
“We inherited a broken school system so we are taking decisive action through our Plan for Change to tackle the attendance crisis – and the latest data shows positive green shoots with the biggest year-on-year improvement in attendance in a decade.
“We are making huge progress with over 5 million more days in school this year and 140,000 fewer pupils persistently absent, which research shows in time is likely to improve severe absence.
“We know there is more to do which is why we are rolling out free breakfast clubs, improving mental health support, ensuring earlier intervention for children with special educational needs and will set out our vision for the school system in the White Paper later this year.”
They said severe absence rate for pupils eligible for Free School Meals have decreased from 3.57% to 3.56%.