Children whose anxiety prevents them from attending school are now being represented in classrooms by £3,500 robots, allowing them to take part in lessons from home.
The AV1 robot is fitted with a camera, microphone and speaker, enabling pupils at home to see, hear and speak to their classmates through an app.
More than 2,000 AV1 robots are in use across the country. Many support children experiencing emotionally based school avoidance, or EBSA — a persistent inability to attend school linked to severe anxiety.
Teachers position the robot on the pupil’s usual desk and address it as if the child were present. From home, the pupil can answer questions and swipe across the screen to rotate the robot’s head through 360 degrees.
A “whisper mode” allows the pupil to speak quietly with a classmate sitting next to the robot, without broadcasting the conversation to the rest of the classroom.
Because the camera works in one direction, the pupil at home can watch and listen to the lesson without being visible to others.
The robot was created by Norwegian company No Isolation, originally to help children in hospital stay connected with their schools.
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)
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Last year, Devon County Council bought 16 robots for pupils struggling to attend school because of “worry, anxiety and overwhelm”.
The council is one of at least 80 authorities to have adopted the AV1 since the Department for Education commissioned it in 2019. Council documents seen by The Mail on Sunday show that the robots are being used to support pupils with EBSA in areas including Somerset, Dorset, Haringey, and Islington in London.
At Moulsham High School in Chelmsford, Essex, which has 20 robots, pupils praised the technology in a glossy promotional video produced by No Isolation.
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 said: “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, rising from 8,453 to 27,442. A record 151,000 pupils missed at least half of their schooling last year, compared with a pre-pandemic low of 60,247.
Attendance rates were regularly above 95 per cent before Covid, but have struggled to recover and fell to 93 per cent in 2025-26.
That decline has continued despite a crackdown on truancy, which has become a greater problem since the pandemic forced many schools to close for extended 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.’
