How a robot called Wendy helped a schoolgirl return to the classroom
“Without the robot I don’t think I’d be in school at all to be honest.”
Sophie* is a year 11 student at Weatherhead High School. She’s confident, engaged in her school work and her favourite subject is art. But this wasn’t always the case for Sophie. From years 7-10 she struggled with severe anxiety which eventually contributed to her not being able to attend school.
Sophie said:
I would sit in the car and just be frozen with anxiety. My confidence was on the floor. I really struggled throughout secondary school to be honest and it’s been quite difficult at times.
Sophie was experiencing emotional barriers to school attendance or ‘EBSA’ – a term used to describe children and young people who have severe difficulty in attending school due to emotional factors, often resulting in prolonged absences from school or difficulties engaging with lessons.
Young people experiencing EBSA may find it intensely difficult to attend school, often feeling unwell, nervous or frightened to go to lessons. There can be lots of reasons why a student may feel this way, including mental health needs, bullying or friendship difficulties, moving to a new school or lots of change at home.
Last year Wirral Council launched a fleet of 12 AV1 robots across the borough to support children who experience issues with attending school for emotional reasons to return to the classroom – virtually.
In 2024 Sophie’s school turned to the local authority for support and were able to access an AV1 robot as part of a pilot scheme. Sophie began to access her lessons remotely, live-streamed via the robot, from the schools’ off-site provision.
They nicknamed the robot Wendy Weatherhead.
Sophie said:
I used Wendy for about three months in total. Just being able to actually see the classroom and what I was going into if I could make it in in the future – to see who was there, what teacher was in class. It was really helpful. I could talk to the teacher through it too so I felt really included in the lessons.
The school were even able to include Sophie in their Christmas celebrations, including attending a festive assembly – which Wendy livestreamed to Sophie without her being in the hall.
Sophie said:
That was great, until somebody sat in front of the robot!
The AV1s are not a permanent solution but rather, a short-term intervention to help pupils gradually re-engage with school life and eventually return in person.
As Sophie’s engagement with lessons improved, so did her confidence. Before she knew it, the barriers to attendance started to disappear and, after a chance gap in internet connection, Sophie returned to the classroom in person. And she hasn’t looked back.
Sophie said:
Without the robot I don’t think I’d be in school at all to be honest. I am sitting my GCSEs in the summer, I don’t think that would be happening. My mum’s noticed a massive change in my personality and confidence as well.
Results from the 2024 pilot showed a 21% increase in attendance and a 42% increase in lesson engagement for the children who took part. And, since the fleet’s purchase, more than 187 hours of teaching have been streamed via the AV1s (equivalent to 29 school days) in Wirral.
Cllr Stephen Bennett, Chair of Wirral’s Children, Young People and Education Committee, said:
A Merseyside first, the fleet of 12 AV1 robots were made available to help tackle emotional barriers to school attendance.
The robots enable the child to go to school in a situation that the child is actually comfortable with.
Since launching the robots we’ve seen improvements in attendance and engagement for the young people who have used them, helping them to return to the classroom with small steps, slowly.
For more information on Wirral’s EBSA strategy, visit: https://familytoolbox.co.uk/resource-list/wirrals-support-for-emotionally-based-school-avoidance-ebsa/.
Sophie’s story aired on ITV Granada on Tuesday 2 December. See the full story here from around 11 mins: https://www.itv.com/watch/news/watch-the-latest-granada-reports-from-tuesday-2nd-december/sdvdqjt.
*Sophie’s name has been changed.
