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There are many reasons that lead students to refuse going to school; they can be related to students' psychological problems, physical ailments, school, friends or family.

1)      Students' Psychological Problems and Physical Ailments:

According to the school psychologist Mary Wimmer, there are a number of psychological issues that can be the cause of this problem. One example of them is anxiety disorders, such as social anxiety, which is a disorder that makes students worry about what others think about them; therefore, they feel anxious while performing something in front of others, such as doing a presentation or giving a speech, and separation anxiety, which is a serious emotional problem, and students who have this disorder feel anxious when they are separated from their caregivers. Another psychological problem is depression; it can be the cause of refusing going to school for some students, especially teenagers. Common characteristics of students who have this psychological problem are the lack of interest in doing school's activities, depressed mood and irritability. Physical complaints can also be the reason that illustrates why pupils neglect going to school. In fact, many children lose the desire to go to school after their health has become better; according to the e-book Understanding School Refusal, the reason behind this behavior is that these pupils have missed a lot of classes and feel they are lost.

2)      Friends:

Most of students who neglect going to school have different difficulties in making friends and keeping good relationships with them. These students usually suffer from bullying; according to the study "School Factors Associated with School Refusal- and Truancy-Related Reasons for School non- Attendance", which published by Science and Medicine Media," …experiencing bullying is primarily a risk factor of school refusal". Moreover, most of these students do not have friends who can support them.

3)      School:

Many school factors can contribute to increasing students' school refusal. One example of these factors, according to the research "School Phobia and School Refusal", which done by Tamsin Archer, Caroline Filmer- Sankey and Fletcher- Campbell, is the unstructured school days. Actually, pupils feel anxious when their time of journeys to and from school and the time of their breaks are unstructured. In addition, they do not like going to school because of some conflicts they have with some teachers, such as problems with their teaching styles or treatment. Moreover, some students fear from specific subjects; they think that they are difficult. For example, they neglect going to school when they have an exam of the subject they hate.

4)      Family:

Problems in family can make a child refuse going to school; the most common one is when parents are divorced. Actually, children with parents who got a divorce feel unstable, so they cannot practice their lives normally. Moreover, domestic violence affects negatively students' characters; it makes them weak and reduce students' self-steam.

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The Stakeholders Affected by the Problem:  

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The Stakeholders Affected by the Problem:  

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Many people are affected by school refusal; the most important ones are students, family members and teachers. First, this problem can affect negatively the student's academic progress; when the child does not attend all classes, s/he will miss many important lessons of different subjects that are going to be included in exams. Also, according to U.S Department of Education, it is hard for these students to catch up with their colleagues and their learning becomes hard. Moreover, the school refuser's social skills may not to be improved because the child misses many important school activities that contribute to improve the student's social skills, such as discussions, which happen in and out the classroom, and presentations. Second, this issue causes many problems between the child and his/ her parents. When their child neglects attending classes, a number of conflicts can be resulted between family members, such as aggression. Unfortunately, these problems are going to deteriorate the relationship between the child and their parents, and sometimes they can lead to a divorce between parents. In addition, this issue makes parents concern and overthink about their child and his/her future, and according to the anxiety recovery coach and consultant Charles Linden, this excessive thinking can cause many health problems to them, such as depression and anxiety. On the other hand, this kind of reluctance that children appear can be beneficial for some parents. Actually, it can encourage them to explore the reasons of this problem with the help of teachers and a professional psychologist and try to find solutions to it, especially if the reasons are associated with them, such their kind of treatment or relationship with their child. Third, teachers also can be the stakeholders who can be affected positively or negatively by this issue. First, when a child refuses attending classes, some teachers can be frustrated, since they think they are boring and their lessons are not interesting. However, this can be positive for some teachers; it encourages them to work harder in order to make their classes more interesting by applying different teaching methods, such as the use of technology in teaching. Furthermore, that may encourage them to conduct research in order to solve this issue, and that positively improves their teaching experience. Also, that can lead the school staff to change the school environment to be more attractive for the child.

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According to the child and adolescence psychotherapist Katie Hurley, there are nine solutions that can be applied to help school students get rid of this problem:

1)      Assess: The first step is that the reason of the issue should be discovered by evaluating different psychological and medical aspects of school refusers, and that done by caregivers and teachers. After that, they search for solutions to recover the reasons of the issue.

2)      Cognitive Behavioral Therapy:  This kind of therapy emphasizes that events are not the reason that makes children feel scared; however, their ways of thinking are responsible of that. This method replaces students' negative ideas about school and teachers with positive ones. This treatment needs a professional psychologist in order to treat students' psychological problems that cause school refusal, such as social anxiety.

3)      Systemic Desensitization: It is one type of Behavioral Therapy and based on Classical Conditioning, which is a process in which a neutral stimulus becomes conditioned after been paired with the unconditioned stimulus. According to the article " Systematic Desensitization", which has been written by the psychology teaching assistant Saul McLeod, the aim of this kind of treatment is to remove the fear response of school phobia and replace a relaxation response to the sources that cause fear to school refusers, such as the fear of failing in a specific subject.

4)      Relaxation training: It is important for students who suffer from anxiety. Many techniques can be applied in this kind of therapy, such as guided imagery and deep breathing.

5)      Re-entry plan: In this type of treatment, a plan created to the child by the treatment team. This plan helps the child re-enter the classroom; moreover, it includes tips the student can apply when s/he faces a difficulty.

6)      Routine and structure: Students' anxiety can be reduced when their events are planned; actually, when they have a structured schedule of their routines, this means that they predict what is going to happen and that absolutely is going to decrease their stress.

7)      Sleep: Some students neglect going to school because they are tired; they have not slept well. In fact, sleeping for enough hours, 7 or 8 hours, is essential for students; it helps them be active and ready for going to school.

8)      Peer buddy: Making a peer as a buddy that walks with a student who suffers from anxiety or bullying can be a good solution.

9)      Social skills training: Attending social skills groups is essential for those students who have difficulties in making friends or interacting with others. Moreover, participating in different activities, such as sport competitions, is a good way that can increase students' social skills.

In addition to these solutions, there is another one that can be applied for students with physical health problems; it is, according to the e- book Understanding School Refusal, " …the provision of timely, effective home tuition may support pupils in avoiding long-term SR, An appreciation means school refusal, and minimize the impact of disruption to education".

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We have interviewed students from different ages to see whether they have the same reasons of disliking school or noOur first interviewee is Lamyaa , a seventeen year old student from grade 11 ( after basic education level) ...let us see her responses.

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Our next interviewees are basic education students... let us see what they say...Our last interviewee is an Senior English teacher Mrs Kholoud from Omama school at al-Seeb ...we asked her some questions related to the English curriculum.... here the conversation.

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A Video: Important Information about School Refusal:

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A Video: Important Information about School Refusal:

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First article: School Refusal in Children and Adolescents:

School refusal is one of the common issues nowadays and it is stressful for children, families and their school. School refusal is considered, by many scholars, as a serious issue that occurs between boys and girls and at all age, but it is more noticeable at the ages 5, 6, 10 and 11. According to many research, some students do not prefer to return back to schools after vacations or weekends because they liked the situation of not going to school and staying home doing whatever they want far from assignments, homework and exams. Therefore, the more students stay at home, the more it becomes difficult for them to return. There are some symptoms that children present when they refuse going to school including fearfulness, temper tantrums, threats of self-harm, crying episodes, panic symptoms and somatic symptoms. In fact, this issue may have huge effects on children either short or long term effects. In fact, it may influence their educational, emotional and social developments. The short-term consequences involve problems with their peers relations, low academic performance and family troubles. While for the long-term sequelae, there may be some increasing in the psychiatric illnesses, employment difficulties and academic underachievement. In addition, students with school refusal may suffer from some emotional distress especially depression, anxiety and mood disorders. When students keep avoiding going to school, this could affect them badly as they may avoid some of the essential fears provoked by the school, such as test-taking situations, teachers, separation anxiety, escaping from some social situations or behaviors that seek attention, which all could worsen if the child keeps staying home. One of the causes for the school avoidance could be the family, especially when there is some dysfunctional family interactions including the little interactions between the members of the family, isolation from interacting with other outside the family unit, high level of conflicts and over dependency, issues with the family members cohesiveness and rigidity. According to the article some of treatments for this issue comprise consultation and education, family interventions, pharmacotherapy and some behavioral strategies. Actually, parental involvement and exposure to school show more effective treatment improvement.

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Second Article: Treatment for School Refusal Among Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

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Second Article: Treatment for School Refusal Among Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

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School refusal is a psychological problem which is characterized by both children and adolescents difficulty to attend school, so they are absent from their schools. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, school refusal is not a disorder, but youth with school refusal are diagnosed with either one or more internalizing disorders. Anxiety disorders are considered one of the disorders that exhibit school refusal especially with young people. In addition, depression may be observed with school refusal among children and adolescents. There are several factors that lead to school refusal including individual factors, such as fear of failure, illness, low self-efficacy and behavioral inhibition, family factors, which involve dysfunctional family interactions, separation, divorce, overprotective parenting style, parent mental health problems. In addition, school factors, such as bullying, structure of the school day and physical education lessons, and community factors, such as inconsistent professional advice, increasing pressure to achieve academically and inadequate support services. Nonattendance, in fact, has many short and long-term consequences including the effect in their learning and achievement, which then leads to school dropout, the poor social adjustment as those students have no or very limited social relations, family conflicts may arise and the ongoing mental health problems. Actually, nonattendance could be treated through using, for instance, psychodynamic approach, behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy and family therapy. The behavioral and cognitive interventions therapy comprise the relaxation training and using or developing anxiety-reducing thoughts, which happens by giving the students a self-instruction techniques to help them coping with positive behaviors. Another way for treating school refusal for youth is the educational support therapy, which contains the educational presentations and supportive psychotherapy. That is, they do daily dairy in order to record the feared attitudes, thoughts and their feelings. Rogerian approach of treating nonattendance issue by using the group therapy format, that is, he used some of the trust games, encouraging those students to discuss their feelings and experiences about the school and listening to some suggestions offered by peers. Over all, the cooperation between parents, teachers and the school in order to decrease the school refusal is very essential besides using these treatments.

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According to this chart, which shows how the number of absenteeism in the Omani’s schools is very high. It seems that it is the highest country among the other countries that are represented in the chart. This may be because of the educational system in Oman , which does not motivate students to love going to schools, or may be because of the harsh teachers or bullying from other students. It could be also because of the transition to another school or family problems that may not encourage the child to go to school.

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Al-Farsi, B. S. R., Ahmed, A., & AlHashmi, S. (2015). The School Absenteeism Contributing Factors: Oman as a Case Study. In Intelligent Data Analysis and Applications (pp. 215-224). Springer, Cham.‏

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Maynard, B. R., Heyne, D., Brendel, K. E., Bulanda, J. J., Thompson, A. M., & Pigott, T. D. (2018). Treatment for school refusal among children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Research on Social Work Practice, 28(1), 56-67.‏

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Reference:
Fremont, W. P. (2003). School refusal in children and adolescents. American family physician, 68(8), 1555-1560.‏

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Archer, T., Sankey, C.& Campbell, F. (2003). School Phobia and School Refusal: Research into Causes and Remedies. Retrieved from: https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/PHO01/PHO01.pdf .
Ertesvåg, S., Bru, E.& Havik, T. (2015, February 24). School factors associated with school refusal- andtruancy-related reasons for school non-attendance. Retrieved: https://ezproxysrv.squ.edu.om:2123/docview/1686958638?accountid=27575.
Reasons for School Refusal in Teens. (2018, October 26). Newport Academy. Retrieved from: https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/restoring-families/school-refusal/.
Wimmer, M. (2008). School Refusal. Retrieved from: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/360c/1a4ab619233acbd15003fa0d1290c0e339d1.pdf.

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Linden, C. (2019, October 4). Anxiety Overthinking - Depression & Anxiety [ Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4nqeHDxbaw.
The Importance of School Attendance. (2018, April 11). U. S. Department of Education. [ Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEDQWgvJwHU.

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McLeod, S. (2005). Systemic Desensitization. Retrieved from: https://www.simplypsychology.org/Systematic-Desensitisation.html .
Thambirajah, M., De-Hayes, L.& Grandison, K. (2008). Understanding School Refusal. London: Jessica Kingsley. Retrieved from: http://ezproxysrv.squ.edu.om:2184/eds/detail/detail?vid=6&sid=aee69bd7-7c1c-4006-ac2f-2bfa483df36a%40sdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=236268&db=e000xww.