Children too anxious to attend school are being represented at their desks by £3,500 robots that let them join lessons from home.
The AV1 robot has a camera, microphone and speaker enabling a child at home to see, hear and speak to classmates via an app.
More than 2,000 are being used nationwide, many by children with ’emotionally based school avoidance’, or EBSA – a chronic refusal to go to school driven by anxiety.
Teachers place the robot on the child’s usual desk and ask them questions as though they were there, while the pupil at home can simply reply, as well as swipe their screen to turn the robot’s head through 360 degrees.
A ‘whisper mode’ lets the absent pupil speak quietly to a classmate sitting beside the robot, rather than letting the whole room hear.
The camera is one-way, so the pupil at home can see and hear the lesson without being seen.
The robot was developed by Norwegian firm No Isolation, initially to keep children in hospital connected to their classrooms.
Children too anxious to attend school are being represented at their desks by £3,500 robots that let them join lessons from home (file photo)
Last year Devon County Council bought 16 robots for pupils who struggle to attend because of ‘worry, anxiety and overwhelm’.
The authority is one of at least 80 to have taken the AV1 since the Department for Education commissioned it in 2019. The robots are used for EBSA pupils in areas including Somerset, Dorset and Haringey and Islington in London, according to council documents seen by The Mail on Sunday.
In a glossy promotional video made by No Isolation, pupils at Moulsham High School in Chelmsford, Essex, which has 20 robots, spoke highly of them.
One Year 11 pupil said: ‘I wasn’t accessing school for a few months due to anxiety. Without the AV1, I don’t think I’d be at the level I am at the moment.
‘When first using it, I was quite nervous. But it helped me to realise that lessons weren’t actually that bad and it did help me to integrate back into class.
‘I’m attending every day, due to the AV1.’
Deputy headteacher Mark Blenkin added: ‘It’s a tried and tested method now. It’s part and parcel of school.’
The number of severely absent pupils with additional ‘social, emotional and mental health’ needs has more than tripled in six years, from 8,453 to 27,442. A record 151,000 pupils missed at least half their schooling last year, from a pre-pandemic low of 60,247.
Attendance rates were regularly above 95 per cent before Covid but have struggled to recover, falling to 93 per cent in 2025-26.
This is despite a crackdown on truancy, which has worsened since the pandemic closed many schools for significant periods.
Every school in England will receive its own attendance target under changes revealed by Labour last month, with more ‘Friday clubs’ encouraged to incentivise end-of-week attendance.
No Isolation’s boss Morten Jorgensen said: ‘School absence is one of the biggest challenges for the education system, with much of this stemming from the rise in emotionally based school non-attendance.
‘Our AV1 technology allows schools to meet their statutory duties.
‘So far this year, 76 per cent of students using AV1 have returned to the classroom, providing significant benefits for the student, schools, local authorities and society at large.’
