Managing back-to-school anxiety

What's happened

Schools and families have been preparing for the new term while arguing over how to support pupils' mental health. Local NHS and charity services are offering practical tips for first-day anxiety, researchers have reported mental-health gains where communities delay smartphones, and teachers and parents are adapting volunteering and transitions to reduce stress.

What's behind the headline?

What is happening now

• Schools and health services are actively preparing for the new term by offering practical support for pupils with anxiety. Mindworks Surrey is running advice under "Small Steps Back to School" focusing on conversation, routine and small supports.
• Communities are testing coordinated policies to delay children getting smartphones; an IFS-affiliated working paper has reported lower recorded mental-health needs where parent pacts were widely adopted.

Why it matters

• Persistent absence remains elevated compared with pre-pandemic levels and will continue to strain school provision and pastoral teams unless families and schools align on routine and support.
• Delaying smartphone ownership changes social norms and will likely reduce out-of-school exposure to harmful online content; where adoption is broad it will change peer expectations and reduce pressure on schools to police tech use during and after school hours.

What to watch next

• Schools will need to scale early screening and referral routes for pupils with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs; failure to do so will increase persistent absence and multiply pressures on exam-year cohorts.
• If parent pacts expand, policymakers will face pressure to convert pledges into measurable behaviour changes; researchers will demand evidence that pledges reduced actual smartphone use, not only intentions.

Practical consequence

• Families can reduce first-day nerves by talking about worries, keeping predictable routines, and arranging social contacts before term starts. Schools will be expected to offer clear settling-in processes and visible support options.

Forecast

• Coordinated community action on smartphone timing will increase uptake of non-digital socialising and will reduce some measures of recorded SEMH need over the next academic year, but robust causality will require peer-reviewed replication and direct measures of device use.

How we got here

School absence and anxiety have risen since the pandemic. Campaigns and local services are promoting coordinated approaches — including smartphone-delay pacts and in-school support programmes — to help pupils settle back into routines and reduce persistent absence.

Our analysis

Local NHS-led services and charities: The BBC reported comments from Aoife Kearney-Grieve of Mindworks Surrey, who said there is "a lot that goes into school absences but anxiety was definitely a factor" and advised parents to "create that space of connection" and to "cut yourself some slack". The BBC also published Surrey attendance figures, showing persistent absence above pre-pandemic levels and a peak in 2022. Independent reporting on community action: The Independent summarised a working paper published via the Institute for Fiscal Studies by economist Gregory Veramendi, noting his claim that high uptake of a parent "smartphone pact" correlated with an eight per cent fall in recorded SEMH needs; the Independent quoted Veramendi's own line that "children's recorded mental-health needs fall substantially where the pact is widely adopted." The Independent also quoted scepticism from Cadice Odgers of UC Irvine, who warned the findings are not yet peer reviewed and that the study measured parental intent to delay phones, not verified reductions in device ownership or use. US and AP reporting on transitions and social support: AP and the Independent ran practical guides and first-person accounts from parents and children about moving schools, organising playdates and building social ties. Multiple first-person features in Business Insider, The Guardian and The Scotsman illustrated how parents and carers are adjusting volunteering, family routines and career choices to support children's transitions, giving concrete examples of family strategies such as mapping bus routes, arranging senior-student mentors and staggering parental involvement. Together the sources show two threads: therapists and local services are offering immediate, actionable steps to reduce anxiety at term start, while early academic work suggests that community norms about smartphone ownership — if widely adopted — are linked to measurable reductions in recorded mental-health needs, though causality remains contested.

Go deeper

• How can schools measure whether parent smartphone pacts actually reduce device use?
• What steps should schools take in the first two weeks to spot pupils at risk of persistent absence?

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