September 9, 2025 • 12 mins
School refusal and absence are at crisis levels. More than 40% of students are missing at least 10% of school days — and it’s only getting worse. Behind every statistic is a child struggling with anxiety, chronic illness, or the weight of a system that doesn’t fit.
In this powerful conversation, Dr Justin Coulson speaks with Megan Gilmour, CEO of Missing School and 2025 ACT Australian of the Year. Megan’s own son battled a life-threatening illness that kept him from school for years, and her advocacy has since transformed the way we think about education, connection, and support for kids who can’t physically be in the classroom.
If you’re worried about your child’s school avoidance — whether from illness, anxiety, or overwhelm — this episode will give you both hope and practical direction.
KEY POINTS:
- Why school absence has skyrocketed since COVID.
- The hidden costs of missing school: academics, friendships, identity, and mental health.
- How school avoidance affects the whole family.
- What digital connection and flexible solutions can look like for struggling students.
- Why the current school model isn’t fit for today’s kids — and what needs to change.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“Wherever school absence starts — illness, anxiety, or overwhelm — the long-term impacts on a child’s wellbeing and future are profound. Connection is everything.” – Megan Gilmour
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Missing School
- School Refusal [HF Article]
- #533 Emotion Based School Avoidance [HF Podcast Episode]
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:
- Notice the early signs of school avoidance — and take them seriously.
- Keep the focus on connection, not just attendance.
- Explore flexible options, including digital classroom access, where possible.
- Seek support: schools can and must accommodate differences.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
More than forty percent of students in years one through
ten were missing at least one in ten school days.
Let me say that again. More than forty percent of
students in grades one to ten are missing at least
ten percent of school according to the latest Australian Curriculum
Assessment and Reporting Authority data. That's AKARA, and that rate
(00:27):
has been steadily worsening over the past five years. Back
in twenty nineteen, seventy three point one percent of students
were attending at least ninet percent of school days. By
last year, the figure was just fifty nine point eight percent,
and unfortunately, the story keeps on getting worse. There are
certain demographics that are affected a little more than others
(00:49):
from a socioeconomic perspective. However, this is an issue that
seems to cross all barriers and all demographics and affect
so many kids. Talking today about kids who are missing school.
If you are concerned about your child, their anxiety and
their school avoidance, today's podcast is for you. I'm going
(01:10):
to be speaking with Megan Gilmore, the founder and CEO
of Missing School. Stay with us, Hello, and welcome to
the Happy Families Podcasts, Real Parenting Solutions. Every day. This
is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. My name is doctor
Justin Colson and today I'm joined by Megan Gilmore. Meighan
is the founder and CEO of Missing School. It's an
(01:31):
innovative charity that addresses educational isolation experienced by kids with
chronic health conditions. Although even though it's about chronic health conditions,
if kids are missing school, that can be any number
of things. Meighan Gilmour was named the twenty twenty five
ACT Australian of the Year because of the advocacy work
that she's been doing, which began with her son's battle
(01:54):
with a life threatening illness that got her I guess
committed to transforming education and access to education nationwide. So
through Missing School, Megan champions the use of anything online
to get kids active and engagement school and ensuring students
remain connected to their classrooms and communities regardless of any
health challenges they have. And her leadership and persistent advocacy
(02:16):
have positioned Missing School at the forefront of educational reform,
driving crucial policy conversations and legislative change to support vulnerable
students across Australia. It's a long intro, But Meghan, I
think you're worthy of it and so grateful that you're
sharing your time with me today to have a conversation
about kids missing school.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Thank you so much for having me on justin.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So let's start with just your story in a nutshell,
you've dealt with chronic school absence because of your son's
quite serious illness when he was young. What can you
tell us about what happened there for him, for you,
and the impacts on you and your family.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, so, in twenty ten, when my healthy, vibrant ten
year old son took a rapid slide into critical illness
the duration of years essentially, and he missed whole big
slabs of school for eighteen months and then intermittently for
the rest of the time, and so school slipped away overnight.
(03:14):
It was not just about academics, but also what we
witnessed through that medical treatment, not just for Darcy, but
for other kids who we were sharing hospital a wards with.
It was that their friends had slipped away too, and
their identity as students and the routine, the every day
routine of school that helped them feel like kids. Our
(03:38):
whole family went into survival mode. I watched Darfie's sister
Mea also carry that silent worry, the sibling grief and
anxiety and being kind of forgotten and left behind in
all of it too. And I dropped everything, of course, work,
our normal life. And what struck us most about this
(04:02):
was that there was no education system roadmaps for families
like ours. We felt it invisible, and that isolation sparked
this lifelong mission that I'm now on.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
It's fascinating to hear you say that. I mean, we're
talking about social issues, we're talking about identity challenges obviously,
the educational missing so much work and the flow on
into the rest of the family. You're dealing with something
that specifically physically impacted your son. Okay, he's got a
(04:34):
physical illness, but there's heaps of parents who are listening
to this who are saying, well, my kids aren't in hospital,
my kids don't have any kind of physiological challenges, but
the mental health challenges absolutely there. It's anxiety, there's been
bullying issues or whatever, and I can't get my kids
out the door. I'm literally dragging them into the school
and then they're coming home by recess. Anyway, what are
(04:55):
you seeing as you have conversations because the research is
so patchy and so unhelpful in this are what are
you seeing in terms of the impacts on kids who
are missing school on a regular basis, whether it's physical,
physical health issues or mental health issues.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. So what we saw is that even though the
physical even though our journey started with a physical condition,
the impacts on mental health for those children and the
anxiety that they faced was there as well. We also
see through our work now at missing school kids whose
(05:30):
school isolation starts with a mental health issue or anxiety,
whatever the causes are, The issue for us is being
isolated from school because we know the long term impacts
that has, and it's not hard to guess what those are.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Can it walk through them?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
For me?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I think that it's worth.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah. So we know that children struggle academically when they
miss school. We know that it disrupts their relationships with
their peers, their friendship, and their teachers, and it has
those long term impacts on wellbeing, including mental health issues,
even if the physical condition in this case resolves. So
(06:13):
wherever that starts, the long term prospects are effects to wellbeing,
effects to future productivity, pathways to careers and work life,
and so we need to address this early and make
sure that we maintain those community connections that school can provide.
(06:33):
This is what we've set out to do, and on
our journey, what we've found is, and you mentioned this before,
that school attendance has slipped, has been slipping, and post
COVID has took a rapid slide. Really, the numbers of
children that this is now affecting and the reasons and
causes for it all point to the same thing is
(06:56):
that our school systems are not fit for purpose. We
believe that we're having We're seeing a lot of these
issues arise not only because the children are having a
physical illness that prevents them from going to school, but
also that children given differences in the way, children are
coming to school with differences and those differences aren't accommodated
(07:20):
by the school system. So we're on our journey now
to resolve this through policy and work with government.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I'm sure that everybody who is a school teacher heres that,
and just it must be so hard to be working
in a school and continually being told the system's wrong,
the system's not fit for purpose. It's so so difficult,
and yet most teachers, most educators that I speak with
will also nod their head in a moment of the
moment of honesty say yes, and we are doing the
very best that we can in a system that is,
(07:51):
I guess, built on medieval institutional frameworks and it just
doesn't really fit what we're dealing with today. When I
think about what you're describing, Megan, the immediate question that
I have, and this is something that I've wrestled with
(08:13):
with many parents over the years, is what do we
need to do to help kids to get a full education?
Because while the school system may have its quirks, idiosyncrasies
and frankly faults, education matters. You can get education outside
of the school system, of course, but whether we're talking
about school or not, education matters, and school is the
(08:34):
place that the overwhelming majority of Australian children need to
go to get that education. How can we help them
to be there when either physically or mentally they're just
falling apart in can't actually be at school?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, well, it is a big question and it's really
coming firmly into an evolution for missing school now because
just to put another final point on it, what we
see is that we're living in twenty first century pressures
and those twenty first century pressures are now disrupting schools.
(09:08):
As a model we're going into. You mentioned it, it's
a post industrial revolution style of model. And I want
to say this because I so respect the work that
teachers do and that our principles and people in schools do,
and they are also experiencing the non fit of that model.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, I'm sure this is why so many teachers and
so many principles are out on stress leave and experiencing
anxiety and depression about their work because of the because
of the fact that the model doesn't work today. So again,
how do you get kids to school and how do
you get even teachers them?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
When we came to this, we decided to trial and
pilot and we have to w a digital connection into
the classroom for children who can't physically be there. And
we've discovered that to way digital connection can take place.
Schools have done it across Australia and what we see
when children are connected that way, and that includes that
(10:08):
has included children who experience extraordinary anxiety. If we didn't
start with a physical condition, that there's that safer way
to join a classroom when they're overwhelmed from a sensory
point of view, or they might feel like they're having
relationship issues with peers in the classroom, and the disability
(10:31):
standards can enable schools to do a lot of things
to keep children connected and supported, including through to a
digital connection. So we have the legislation, we have the technology.
We just need better policy now and we just need
our leaders to step up and look at schools as
(10:55):
part of critical part of the economy as well as
a critical part of children's lives and recognize that we're
in an era now where transformation is needed.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Such a complex, challenging and hand ringing kind of challenge
for so many families. Meghan Gilmour is the founder and
CEO of Missing School. You can google and find Meghan.
We will link to her and all of her info
in these show notes. Meghan really appreciate you jumping under
the pod and having a chat with us today.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Thank you so much for having me on today.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Justin Meghan has been named the twenty twenty five ACT
Australian of the Year and I think that this is
a conversation that is not going to go away in
a hurry. So much too, so much to juggle and
so much to deal with here. If this has brought
anything up for you, Like I said, we will link
to missing school and other resources in the show notes.
(11:50):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
Bridge Media. Mem Hammonds provides research and other admin support.
If you would like more information and rese sources to
support your family and help them to be happier and flourish,
you can visit happy families dot com dot au. Oh
should also mention tomorrow on the Happy Families Podcast. Another
(12:11):
school topic we're going to be talking about, whether or
not leave should or should not be approved, if kids
are being told by their parents to take the day
off or the week off for out of school term holidays, controversial, provocative,
We're going to get the down low on that as well.
That's tomorrow on the podcast. We'll see you there.
More than forty percent of students in years one through
ten were missing at least one in ten school days.
Let me say that again. More than forty percent of
students in grades one to ten are missing at least
ten percent of school according to the latest Australian Curriculum
Assessment and Reporting Authority data. That's AKARA, and that rate
(00:27):
has been steadily worsening over the past five years. Back
in twenty nineteen, seventy three point one percent of students
were attending at least ninet percent of school days. By
last year, the figure was just fifty nine point eight percent,
and unfortunately, the story keeps on getting worse. There are
certain demographics that are affected a little more than others
(00:49):
from a socioeconomic perspective. However, this is an issue that
seems to cross all barriers and all demographics and affect
so many kids. Talking today about kids who are missing school.
If you are concerned about your child, their anxiety and
their school avoidance, today's podcast is for you. I'm going
(01:10):
to be speaking with Megan Gilmore, the founder and CEO
of Missing School. Stay with us, Hello, and welcome to
the Happy Families Podcasts, Real Parenting Solutions. Every day. This
is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. My name is doctor
Justin Colson and today I'm joined by Megan Gilmore. Meighan
is the founder and CEO of Missing School. It's an
(01:31):
innovative charity that addresses educational isolation experienced by kids with
chronic health conditions. Although even though it's about chronic health conditions,
if kids are missing school, that can be any number
of things. Meighan Gilmour was named the twenty twenty five
ACT Australian of the Year because of the advocacy work
that she's been doing, which began with her son's battle
(01:54):
with a life threatening illness that got her I guess
committed to transforming education and access to education nationwide. So
through Missing School, Megan champions the use of anything online
to get kids active and engagement school and ensuring students
remain connected to their classrooms and communities regardless of any
health challenges they have. And her leadership and persistent advocacy
(02:16):
have positioned Missing School at the forefront of educational reform,
driving crucial policy conversations and legislative change to support vulnerable
students across Australia. It's a long intro, But Meghan, I
think you're worthy of it and so grateful that you're
sharing your time with me today to have a conversation
about kids missing school.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Thank you so much for having me on justin.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So let's start with just your story in a nutshell,
you've dealt with chronic school absence because of your son's
quite serious illness when he was young. What can you
tell us about what happened there for him, for you,
and the impacts on you and your family.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, so, in twenty ten, when my healthy, vibrant ten
year old son took a rapid slide into critical illness
the duration of years essentially, and he missed whole big
slabs of school for eighteen months and then intermittently for
the rest of the time, and so school slipped away overnight.
(03:14):
It was not just about academics, but also what we
witnessed through that medical treatment, not just for Darcy, but
for other kids who we were sharing hospital a wards with.
It was that their friends had slipped away too, and
their identity as students and the routine, the every day
routine of school that helped them feel like kids. Our
(03:38):
whole family went into survival mode. I watched Darfie's sister
Mea also carry that silent worry, the sibling grief and
anxiety and being kind of forgotten and left behind in
all of it too. And I dropped everything, of course, work,
our normal life. And what struck us most about this
(04:02):
was that there was no education system roadmaps for families
like ours. We felt it invisible, and that isolation sparked
this lifelong mission that I'm now on.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
It's fascinating to hear you say that. I mean, we're
talking about social issues, we're talking about identity challenges obviously,
the educational missing so much work and the flow on
into the rest of the family. You're dealing with something
that specifically physically impacted your son. Okay, he's got a
(04:34):
physical illness, but there's heaps of parents who are listening
to this who are saying, well, my kids aren't in hospital,
my kids don't have any kind of physiological challenges, but
the mental health challenges absolutely there. It's anxiety, there's been
bullying issues or whatever, and I can't get my kids
out the door. I'm literally dragging them into the school
and then they're coming home by recess. Anyway, what are
(04:55):
you seeing as you have conversations because the research is
so patchy and so unhelpful in this are what are
you seeing in terms of the impacts on kids who
are missing school on a regular basis, whether it's physical,
physical health issues or mental health issues.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. So what we saw is that even though the
physical even though our journey started with a physical condition,
the impacts on mental health for those children and the
anxiety that they faced was there as well. We also
see through our work now at missing school kids whose
(05:30):
school isolation starts with a mental health issue or anxiety,
whatever the causes are, The issue for us is being
isolated from school because we know the long term impacts
that has, and it's not hard to guess what those are.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Can it walk through them?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
For me?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I think that it's worth.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah. So we know that children struggle academically when they
miss school. We know that it disrupts their relationships with
their peers, their friendship, and their teachers, and it has
those long term impacts on wellbeing, including mental health issues,
even if the physical condition in this case resolves. So
(06:13):
wherever that starts, the long term prospects are effects to wellbeing,
effects to future productivity, pathways to careers and work life,
and so we need to address this early and make
sure that we maintain those community connections that school can provide.
(06:33):
This is what we've set out to do, and on
our journey, what we've found is, and you mentioned this before,
that school attendance has slipped, has been slipping, and post
COVID has took a rapid slide. Really, the numbers of
children that this is now affecting and the reasons and
causes for it all point to the same thing is
(06:56):
that our school systems are not fit for purpose. We
believe that we're having We're seeing a lot of these
issues arise not only because the children are having a
physical illness that prevents them from going to school, but
also that children given differences in the way, children are
coming to school with differences and those differences aren't accommodated
(07:20):
by the school system. So we're on our journey now
to resolve this through policy and work with government.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I'm sure that everybody who is a school teacher heres that,
and just it must be so hard to be working
in a school and continually being told the system's wrong,
the system's not fit for purpose. It's so so difficult,
and yet most teachers, most educators that I speak with
will also nod their head in a moment of the
moment of honesty say yes, and we are doing the
very best that we can in a system that is,
(07:51):
I guess, built on medieval institutional frameworks and it just
doesn't really fit what we're dealing with today. When I
think about what you're describing, Megan, the immediate question that
I have, and this is something that I've wrestled with
(08:13):
with many parents over the years, is what do we
need to do to help kids to get a full education?
Because while the school system may have its quirks, idiosyncrasies
and frankly faults, education matters. You can get education outside
of the school system, of course, but whether we're talking
about school or not, education matters, and school is the
(08:34):
place that the overwhelming majority of Australian children need to
go to get that education. How can we help them
to be there when either physically or mentally they're just
falling apart in can't actually be at school?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, well, it is a big question and it's really
coming firmly into an evolution for missing school now because
just to put another final point on it, what we
see is that we're living in twenty first century pressures
and those twenty first century pressures are now disrupting schools.
(09:08):
As a model we're going into. You mentioned it, it's
a post industrial revolution style of model. And I want
to say this because I so respect the work that
teachers do and that our principles and people in schools do,
and they are also experiencing the non fit of that model.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, I'm sure this is why so many teachers and
so many principles are out on stress leave and experiencing
anxiety and depression about their work because of the because
of the fact that the model doesn't work today. So again,
how do you get kids to school and how do
you get even teachers them?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
When we came to this, we decided to trial and
pilot and we have to w a digital connection into
the classroom for children who can't physically be there. And
we've discovered that to way digital connection can take place.
Schools have done it across Australia and what we see
when children are connected that way, and that includes that
(10:08):
has included children who experience extraordinary anxiety. If we didn't
start with a physical condition, that there's that safer way
to join a classroom when they're overwhelmed from a sensory
point of view, or they might feel like they're having
relationship issues with peers in the classroom, and the disability
(10:31):
standards can enable schools to do a lot of things
to keep children connected and supported, including through to a
digital connection. So we have the legislation, we have the technology.
We just need better policy now and we just need
our leaders to step up and look at schools as
(10:55):
part of critical part of the economy as well as
a critical part of children's lives and recognize that we're
in an era now where transformation is needed.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Such a complex, challenging and hand ringing kind of challenge
for so many families. Meghan Gilmour is the founder and
CEO of Missing School. You can google and find Meghan.
We will link to her and all of her info
in these show notes. Meghan really appreciate you jumping under
the pod and having a chat with us today.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Thank you so much for having me on today.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Justin Meghan has been named the twenty twenty five ACT
Australian of the Year and I think that this is
a conversation that is not going to go away in
a hurry. So much too, so much to juggle and
so much to deal with here. If this has brought
anything up for you, Like I said, we will link
to missing school and other resources in the show notes.
(11:50):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
Bridge Media. Mem Hammonds provides research and other admin support.
If you would like more information and rese sources to
support your family and help them to be happier and flourish,
you can visit happy families dot com dot au. Oh
should also mention tomorrow on the Happy Families Podcast. Another
(12:11):
school topic we're going to be talking about, whether or
not leave should or should not be approved, if kids
are being told by their parents to take the day
off or the week off for out of school term holidays, controversial, provocative,
We're going to get the down low on that as well.
That's tomorrow on the podcast. We'll see you there.
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