Dr Beth Bodycote
Beth became aware of barriers to attendance and the impact they have on young people and families in 2008 when her son experienced barriers to attendance during the transition between primary and secondary school and stopped attending school. During this experience, Beth began assisting in social media based support groups for families navigating barriers to attendance; this involvement inspired her to set up and become a Director of Not Fine in School to empower and support families and to raise awareness of the difficulties and issues families experience via a website, Facebook support groups and working alongside Square Peg.
In 2012 Beth enrolled at university to study for a degree in Education Studies with the passion and drive to find a way to make a difference for the families she was engaging with on social media. Beth’s degree dissertation was entitled Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place: An Exploration of the Experiences of Parents with School-Refusing Children, Within the Education System. Beth’s academic journey concluded in 2022 with the completion of a PhD entitled An Exploration of the Experiences of Parents Who Seek to Resolve School Attendance Problems and Barriers.
Beth’s research participants describe how a combination of systemic factors make it difficult for parents to comply with their legal duty to ensure their children access a full-time, suitable education. Therefore, it seems inappropriate and ineffective to enforce legal expectations which appear to be largely unachievable in the current systemic context. This lack of power and reduction in agency forces parents to engage in complex and extensive battles, which sometimes end with them removing children from school rolls altogether. For many families the resolution they achieve is not the one they had hoped for at the outset of their journey, but it is a resolution that reflects changes in their perception of the problem and their altered priorities as a result.
Beth has recently acted as a research consultant on projects about barriers to attendance with Emerging Minds (Oxford University), Northampton University, and Spectrum Gaming.
Beth became aware of barriers to attendance and the impact they have on young people and families in 2008 when her son experienced barriers to attendance during the transition between primary and secondary school and stopped attending school. During this experience, Beth began assisting in social media based support groups for families navigating barriers to attendance; this involvement inspired her to set up and become a Director of Not Fine in School to empower and support families and to raise awareness of the difficulties and issues families experience via a website, Facebook support groups and working alongside Square Peg.
In 2012 Beth enrolled at university to study for a degree in Education Studies with the passion and drive to find a way to make a difference for the families she was engaging with on social media. Beth’s degree dissertation was entitled Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place: An Exploration of the Experiences of Parents with School-Refusing Children, Within the Education System. Beth’s academic journey concluded in 2022 with the completion of a PhD entitled An Exploration of the Experiences of Parents Who Seek to Resolve School Attendance Problems and Barriers.
Beth’s research participants describe how a combination of systemic factors make it difficult for parents to comply with their legal duty to ensure their children access a full-time, suitable education. Therefore, it seems inappropriate and ineffective to enforce legal expectations which appear to be largely unachievable in the current systemic context. This lack of power and reduction in agency forces parents to engage in complex and extensive battles, which sometimes end with them removing children from school rolls altogether. For many families the resolution they achieve is not the one they had hoped for at the outset of their journey, but it is a resolution that reflects changes in their perception of the problem and their altered priorities as a result.
Beth has recently acted as a research consultant on projects about barriers to attendance with Emerging Minds (Oxford University), Northampton University, and Spectrum Gaming.
Beth became aware of barriers to attendance and the impact they have on young people and families in 2008 when her son experienced barriers to attendance during the transition between primary and secondary school and stopped attending school. During this experience, Beth began assisting in social media based support groups for families navigating barriers to attendance; this involvement inspired her to set up and become a Director of Not Fine in School to empower and support families and to raise awareness of the difficulties and issues families experience via a website, Facebook support groups and working alongside Square Peg.
In 2012 Beth enrolled at university to study for a degree in Education Studies with the passion and drive to find a way to make a difference for the families she was engaging with on social media. Beth’s degree dissertation was entitled Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place: An Exploration of the Experiences of Parents with School-Refusing Children, Within the Education System. Beth’s academic journey concluded in 2022 with the completion of a PhD entitled An Exploration of the Experiences of Parents Who Seek to Resolve School Attendance Problems and Barriers.
Beth’s research participants describe how a combination of systemic factors make it difficult for parents to comply with their legal duty to ensure their children access a full-time, suitable education. Therefore, it seems inappropriate and ineffective to enforce legal expectations which appear to be largely unachievable in the current systemic context. This lack of power and reduction in agency forces parents to engage in complex and extensive battles, which sometimes end with them removing children from school rolls altogether. For many families the resolution they achieve is not the one they had hoped for at the outset of their journey, but it is a resolution that reflects changes in their perception of the problem and their altered priorities as a result.
Beth has recently acted as a research consultant on projects about barriers to attendance with Emerging Minds (Oxford University), Northampton University, and Spectrum Gaming.