Tale as Old as Term: Unauthorised Absence Highlights UK Crisis Hitting SEND Families

An emotional new short film depicting the struggles families face in the UK school crisis is hitting the awards ceremonies and making a serious splash, as audiences are faced with the deeply affecting realities of a rigid, inflexible school system that is often incapable of supporting children with varied and individual needs.

The film follows a single mother fighting to support her autistic daughter while the education system pushes her to the brink with fines, threats, and blame.

The film is executive produced by MVA CEO Hugh Viney, who made it clear why he feels this film is so important:

I've seen this story thousands of times. The school gaslights the parent. The local authority gaslights them too, while they fight for an EHCP. Meanwhile, they're trying to drag a frightened child back through the school gates. It's traumatic for everyone involved.

We've been fighting this fight for years, and we haven't been able to move the dial on how the government or the public see it. This film puts that fight into art. If it can move people, it might reach the ones our arguments never have.

The film's writer, director and producer all joined Hugh earlier in the year for a panel on the film at MVA's Summer Festival, where they spoke about the personal experiences that led to the film's creation, and why the story is so important to tell now.

Because it's a story that parents up and down the UK will already have seen, heard, or lived. It's a story that is taking place constantly for families all over the country.

Families who desperately want their child to be in education, but are not willing to simply force them into a classroom that makes them overwhelmingly anxious, distressed, or even physically unwell.

It's a story we hear every day at MVA. Sadly, we often only hear it after months or even years of struggle. It's a story that Victoria, an MVA parent, told almost verbatim on Sky News just a couple of months ago.

But it's a story that has seemingly gone unheard by the wider public, and misunderstood by authorities. That is why this film is so crucial to breaking the cycle.

Despite the epidemic of these stories, they are battles that happen in isolation. Many struggle alone for a long time. Many feel they have no one to turn to. Many are told by authorities that they are doing something wrong deserving of fines or punishment.

And so they struggle, and awareness remains low, and the cycle continues.

One of MVA's core missions over the past year has been driving wider change in the UK education sector, beyond our virtual halls. Because, while we continue to take on more and more students, and work to reach out to more and more families in need, we cannot take on every child. Because not every child would suit online school.

If every single child in the UK is to be able to go to a school that makes them happy, we need an overhaul of how the education system handles families when the child doesn't fit the mould.

We need more compassion. More adaptability. More accommodation. More understanding.

Children don't 'refuse' school because they don't want to learn. Parents don't let their children stay at home because they don't care. And yet, far too often, well-meaning people follow a procedure which piles on pressure and stress, and provides very little in the way of solutions.

It is our sincere hope that this film goes some way to making the experiences of these countless families painfully clear as something that cannot continue.

Unauthorised Absence is coming soon. You can keep up with developments on their instagram at @unauthorisedabsencefilm.

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