Beyond behaviors and personality clashes, there's often something deeper involved
School Refusers & Leavers
What is School Refusal & How We Can Help
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School refusal is most often a child's inability to attend school or to remain there for the full day. This usually involves intense emotional difficulties associated with both attendance and absence. In school refusal, the child stays at home with their parents' knowledge, unlike truancy where the absence is concealed. School refusal is fueled by significant mental and emotional distress and can exhibit behavioral/physical manifestations and severe nervous system dysregulation as well.
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In Ireland, families affected by school refusal (which is sometimes also known as Emotionally Based School Avoidance - EBSA) can access coordinated support through the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS). The process is supposed to involve collaborative effort between parents with schools to develop reintegration plans. For students themselves, there are a limited number of supports aimed at addressing the root cause and helping them to untangle the reason for why school difficulties escalated into school refusal in the first instance.
​In Ireland, families affected by school refusal (which is sometimes also known as Emotionally Based School Avoidance - EBSA) can access coordinated support through the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS). The process is supposed to involve collaborative effort between parents with schools to develop reintegration plans. For students themselves, there are a limited number of supports aimed at addressing the root cause and helping them to untangle the reason for why school difficulties escalated into school refusal in the first instance.
At Thinkable Learning Centre, our experience has shown us that there are always cognitive ability considerations for each school refuser. Just as no one would feed a small amount of peanuts to a child with a true peanut allergy -- we don't believe that pushing students back into classrooms without the appropriate cognitive skills interventions will create a positive outcome either. If a student perceives danger, their nervous system will be convinced that there is real and true danger. Do we really want to dismantle all the protection systems associated with logic for the demand of blind obedience? We don't think so!
Our experience has shown us that it's far more successful to take a different approach: to train cognitive skills and critical thinking in a safe environment where the nervous system can be calm and then work our way to reframing learning as a safe task we can engage in -- and go from there.
Play is what helps us connect those dots!
Humans have always learned through play. It's like a switch to the brain to get neurons to fire and wire towards curiosity and learning and skill acquisition. Every step of existence for all of us involves skill acquisition at the cost of play. From cooing to crawling to toddling to running to hide&seek to hurling/camogie to mixed martial arts and every silly moment of paint and dance and singing in between -- every skill we've ever mastered came through social and physical engagement in play-based activities. For most of us, we had to try and fail --- over and over and over again. We also had to get frustrated or competitive and muster the courage and strength to try again. And that's only with games we WANT to get good at. That's not how any of us approach the boring, uninteresting, and difficult challenges we encounter in school work or with difficult people we'd rather avoid.
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That's where brain training come in and shines a light in the direction students can understand.
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Brain training is a trainer-led, play-based support, but it is distinctly different than play therapy.
Because play acts like a very reliable switch, every human, school refuser or not, has a way forward on the tasks they find impossible. Rewiring the brain takes work -- but it can feel like PLAY. And that's scientifically exactly why it works.
Another way of saying it is this: by increasing our ability to engage in challenging tasks we like, we get to enjoy the benefits of improved the emotional regulation and the cognitive flexibility that comes with it.... all of which are needed to manage severe school-related anxieties and stalemates and the attendance issues that come with them.
It bears repeating that school refusal is rarely a matter of truancy; it is, instead, a complex scenario with several different cognitive causes. There is often an anxiety-driven component (but not always!) in which a student experiences intense distress at the prospect of attending school. Sometimes there are clashing personalities or structures that further drive the student away from a specific teacher (and ultimately from the classroom learning environment altogether).
At Thinkable Learning Centre, we don't believe that there are cookie-cutter answers and only one path to success back in the classroom for school refusers through NEPS.
We believe the opposite.
​Research & evidence about learning are clear: brains are unique
The way you influence a brain to wire towards easier learning is NOT a group activity when there are severe cognitive weaknesses. When the NEPS process fails for a student because of a lack of collaborative success with a school or failing to address the root of the school refusal successfully, our approach will be quite different. We think it's important for families to know that there are other options, even if we fully support the good work of NEPS ourselves!
To further emphasize this point -- we directly receive referrals to provide cognitive brain training from the same educational psychologists engaged in the NEPS/school refusal collaborative process. That's because educational psychologists understand how valuable a tool brain training is. It has been our experience that they do understand this in great depth, but maybe the one assigned to your case doesn't know about our brain training work in Dundrum for school refusers? This is the easiest way to explain why you might not have heard about our approach yet.
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But what do we actually recommend?
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Our best advice to anyone navigating this difficult time in a student's life goes a little against the grain of what other supports might be telling you. We believe that the heart and soul of untangling school refusal must involve trusting the student FIRST. With that trust (and the rapport that it helps establish!) comes the real opportunity to reverse the complicated dynamic already in motion. By establishing ourselves as an advocate for the student -- we are not just another voice telling them to "get over it" or "suck it up" or "you have to" or blaming them for a failure/choice/decision. This is especially true amongst students with neurodiversity who more frequently have symptoms of oppositional defiance, rejection sensitivity, or personal demand for autonomy.
Our ​main goal is always to help students learn easier - that goal is never classroom specific, even if making learning easier often creates more school attendance. The way we accomplish that lofty goal is with playful, challenging, engaging fun "games" that help students overcome underlying cognitive deficits. With improved cognitive skills, every student has a better chance at thinking easier, learning faster, and performing better.
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​Improved self esteem and increased confidence are the natural consequences of our work. It doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen and we have yet to fail with any student of any age. Our favorite part of the process is watching the change happen -- and we LOVE delivering smiling, capable, and confident students back to their families at the end of our sessions. We always remind families that it is a process though.... and it won't happen straight away. It might take days, or weeks, or months as every student is different. But it will happen.
Targeted cognitive exercises help retrain how the brain responds to fear, reduces stress reactions, and strengthens the mental resilience needed to return confidently to the classroom.
To Summarize The Cognitive and Emotional Advantages for School Refusers:
Reduces Emotional Reactivity: School refusal is often linked to an overactive amygdala (the brain's fear centre). Brain training strengthens activity in the prefrontal cortex, enabling students to respond to fear more rationally instead of reacting with instinctive panic.
Enhances Cognitive Flexibility: Students with anxiety can become stuck in rigid, negative thinking patterns about school. Brain training encourages mental adaptability, helping them develop alternative ways to cope with social and academic challenges.
Strengthens Working Memory: Ongoing anxiety increases cortisol levels, disrupting short-term memory and concentration. Improving working memory rebuilds academic confidence, making the school environment feel more manageable.
Reduces Sensory Overload: For students avoiding school due to neurodivergent conditions such as ADHD or autism, cognitive training enhances sensory filtering, making it easier to manage classroom noise, distractions, and other overwhelming stimuli.​​
What is Cognitive Brain Training?
Cognitive training follows an intentionally different approach than traditional tutoring. Rather than revisiting school content, it focuses on developing the underlying mental abilities needed to process, understand, and retain information.
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At Thinkable Learning Centre, students take part in structured cognitive exercises designed to strengthen:
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Attention and concentration, helping focus to grasp new concepts.
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Working memory, enabling retention and the ability to work with information while reading, writing, or solving problems.
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Sequencing and directionality, which support reading accuracy, fluency, and mathematical understanding.
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Logical reasoning, increasing the ability that allows knowledge to become genuine comprehension.
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As these cognitive skills improve, learning at school starts to feel more manageable. Reading and maths become less overwhelming, and the confusion and frustration that once dominated the experience are gradually replaced by confidence and curiosity.
From Struggle to Strength
For every student we have worked with so far, the transformation has been profound. Students who had fallen behind, now read confidently at grade level. Students who struggled endlessly with even basic maths now achieve above grade level in mathematics.
Most students' improvements begin small with their teachers or colleagues or family noticing stronger concentration, improved understanding, or a renewed excitement for learning.
These are the clear signs we look for to know that the core processes behind learning are beginning to finally function in harmony. Progress is not always immediate, but it does happen. Often times, we will see small incremental changes for a period of time before a large increase in cognitive capacity happens.
Every Journey is Unique
Each student's progress depends on their individual needs, consistency of attendance, and the combination of intense cognitive and appropriate academic training they receive. The important truth remains that revision and tutoring approaches for school refusal can only review content that the student successfully takes on board (which is already a struggle!). But it's cognitive training can build or rebuild those capacities and abilities and allow for curriculum details to be taken on board in an effective and efficient manner that doesn't feel impossible.
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For children who continue to fall behind despite receiving extra help, the key may not be more of the same - it may be a new approach to strengthening how the brain learns.
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More about what we do...
Brain Training Targets the Source of Learning Challenges
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At Thinkable Learning Centre, we first identify the cognitive skills that may be contributing to a child's difficulties. From there, we focus on strengthening those areas through targeted brain training exercises. As brain skills improve, students are often able to process, understand, and retain information more effectively.
Three Steps. That's All It Takes. Our expert team guides every student (and their parents/partners!) through a three-step process: Assessment, engagement about the Results, and then Training for Strength. Each step is entirely personalized and crafted to the student's specific learning needs as identified by our world-class assessment. This process allows us cater to individual cognitive skill combinations that are unique to each individual. The outcomes our students enjoy as a result of completing our brain training programs include: increased processing speed, memory, attention, and all aspects of the cognitive learning process -- benefits that group work and private tuition can never meaningfully offer. Most students also get the secondary advantage of a measurable increase in reading proficiency!
So How Does It Work?
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Step One
Assessment is key. We evaluate every student's auditory, visual, memory, attention, language, & critical thinking skills. The cognitive skills results will outline their core strengths and areas for improvement (qualitatively & quantitatively), often validating concerns in specific & measurable ways.
Step Two
Programs are personalized. What you need -- nothing less, nothing more. Once skill differences are identified, we customize the brain training program that can target learning challenges. Interactive sessions keep students motivated and engaged, slowly building confidence in their new abilities.
Step Three
Train the brain! Repetition and intensity are the key to achieving a neuroplastic effect from brain training. Our trainers work with a singular focus of creating lasting outcomes by using the best neurocognitive methods available in our programs. Our activities are fun, engaging, and challenging.
