Can you tutor children who are completely out of school?

Yes. We specialise in working with young people who are out of school for any reason — post-exclusion, EOTAS, EBSA, or between placements. Sessions take place at home and are paced to what the young person can manage.

Do you support children with EHCPs who are out of school?

Yes. We work alongside local authorities and families to provide EHCP-aligned provision for out-of-school children. We write progress reports for annual reviews and attend review meetings where appropriate.

What is EBSA and can tutoring help with it?

Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) is a stress response, not a behaviour problem. Specialist 1:1 tutoring at home, delivered by an experienced SEMH tutor in a consistent and low-pressure way, can help young people re-engage with learning while the underlying causes of avoidance are addressed.

Parent Question

Tutoring for school-avoidant and out-of-school children

Tutoring at home and in the community, designed for young people who cannot currently access school.

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If your child has stopped attending school — or is technically enrolled but not accessing education — you are likely navigating a situation that feels urgent, isolating, and without a clear path forward. This page explains what tutoring can offer school-avoidant and out-of-school young people, how Thrive's approach works, and when to get in touch.

What we mean by school-avoidant and out-of-school

These terms describe two overlapping groups. School-avoidant young people may still be on a school roll but are struggling or unable to attend — sometimes sporadically, sometimes not at all. Out-of-school young people are those without a current school placement: following an exclusion, between settings, or supported under Education Otherwise Than At School (EOTAS) arrangements.

What they share is that school, as a setting, is not currently working for them. The reasons vary: unmet SEND needs, anxiety, trauma, social difficulties, neurodivergence, or combinations of these. Effective support meets them where they are, in a setting that does not replicate the environment they cannot access.

Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) and what it means in practice

EBSA is increasingly recognised as the correct framing for school avoidance. It describes a stress response — not a behaviour problem. The young person's nervous system has learned to associate school with something intolerable, and it is responding accordingly. Working against that response typically makes it worse.

Thrive tutors working with EBSA-presenting young people are experienced in anxiety-informed practice, demand-avoidant profiles and gentle reintroduction to structured learning. Sessions are:

Delivered at home or in a safe community setting, never at school
Consistent in person, time and approach — predictability is a key anxiety regulator
Low-pressure in structure, particularly early in the placement
Paced to what the young person can tolerate, not to a timetable

What tutoring does for out-of-school children

When a child is out of school, three things tend to happen at once: academic gaps widen, confidence in learning drops, and the sense of being permanently left behind grows. Specialist tutoring addresses all three.

It keeps learning alive. Even two or three hours per week of purposeful, supported work prevents the wholesale collapse of academic engagement that months without school can produce. It rebuilds the relationship with learning itself — separating education from the place the child currently cannot tolerate. And it generates evidence: structured tutoring with written progress reports provides the documentation that EHCP reviews, SEN needs assessments and local authority provision planning require.

Working with EHCPs and local authorities

Many out-of-school children have, or are seeking, an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). Under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996, local authorities have a legal duty to provide suitable education for children who cannot attend school. The practical experience of accessing that duty varies considerably between authorities.

We work alongside families, SENCOs, SEN caseworkers and virtual school heads to support commissioned provision. We write EHCP-aligned progress reports and attend review meetings where appropriate. If your child does not yet have an EHCP and you believe one is needed, we can help you understand the next steps.

What a Thrive placement looks like

We match each young person to a tutor whose experience fits their specific profile. For school-avoidant and out-of-school young people, we prioritise tutors with SEMH and SEN experience. The relationship matters more, initially, than subject coverage.

Placements typically begin at low intensity — one or two sessions per week, with a relationship-building phase before structured academic work. If mentoring would support the young person alongside tutoring, we can often provide both through the same person or a closely coordinated pair.

When to get in touch

We work with families at every stage: whether your child has just stopped attending, has been out of school for months, is under a Section 19 arrangement, or is waiting for an EHCP. The earlier the contact, the more options are available — but it is never too late to provide good support.

More about school refusal

Should I force my child back to school? +

Generally no — at least not without first understanding why they cannot attend. Forced attendance for sustained EBSA presentations often makes things worse, not better. The right response is to investigate what is driving the avoidance and to address that, while keeping the child engaged with learning in a setting they can tolerate.

Is school refusal the same as EBSA? +

EBSA — Emotionally Based School Avoidance — is the current preferred term among Educational Psychologists and SEN professionals. It describes the same phenomenon as school refusal but reframes it as an emotional response rather than a behaviour. The reframing matters because it shapes the response: investigation rather than consequence.

Will tutoring reintegrate my child into school? +

Sometimes. For some young people, the relational and academic rebuilding that happens in tutoring is enough to enable a return to school, often phased and with the right support in place. For others, reintegration is not the right outcome — they need specialist provision, EOTAS, or a different setting entirely. We do not promise reintegration; we promise honest assessment and the right work for each child.

Can my child still get GCSEs if they're not in school? +

Yes. Children educated outside school can still sit GCSEs — including through external exam centres, alternative provision, or as private candidates. Many of our young people sit and pass GCSEs while not in school. The route depends on the child's circumstances and the local authority's commissioning approach.

How do schools and local authorities view school refusal? +

Variably. Some schools and LAs are well-versed in EBSA and respond constructively from the outset. Others still treat it as a behaviour or attendance issue and apply pressure or fines. If you are encountering the second response, you have options — requesting an EHCP needs assessment, escalating to senior SEN officers, or engaging legal advocacy through organisations like IPSEA or SOS!SEN.

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