Ed Psych Now

‘My child won’t go to school’

When school is hard, start with the right questions.

When school is hard, many parents tell us the hardest part isn’t just the mornings or the anxiety. It’s the constant questioning of yourself, the broken sleep, the feeling of fighting systems that should be helping, and the sense of slowly losing yourself while you hold everything together.

Clear Picture can’t fix the system, but it can help you organise and validate what you’re seeing and experiencing. It can help you understand some of the factors that might be keeping things stuck, and walk into the next conversation with school feeling clearer and less alone.

Clear Picture is a structured set of EBSA (emotionally based school avoidance/non-attendance) questions designed by Dr Cobb to help you consider different aspects of what might be happening. Your responses are brought together into a report that offers an educational psychologist’s perspective on what you’ve shared.

Get your Clear Picture · £245

Dr Rose Cobb, educational psychologist

Led by Dr Rose Cobb
Educational psychologist · Former teacher, EYFS to post-16 · AEP member
About us

When school feels hard, it can be difficult to see the whole picture

You may have noticed anxiety, hard mornings, slipping attendance, or a child who seems fine once they are in school while you see something different at home. There is often a lot of information, and little time to pull it together. Clear Picture gives you a calm, structured way to do that.

Clear Picture

£245paid once

A structured, individualised report for when your child is finding school hard — to keep, or to take into conversations with school.

You answer questions carefully designed by an educational psychologist (about 25–35 minutes; you can save and come back). Clear Picture is not simply a questionnaire or generic advice: its value is bringing your observations together through an educational psychology-informed framework.

The questions help you make sense of what might be keeping things stuck: where things are now, when it's harder and easier, what may be keeping it going, and questions you could ask school. Your report is reviewed and edited by a registered educational psychologist. Usually ready within 1–3 working days. Not a full assessment or diagnosis.

  • Understand what might be happening — Bring together what you've noticed about your child's experience of school, home and everyday life.
  • Explore possible explanations — Consider the factors that may be making school harder, what helps and what might be keeping difficulties going.
  • Feel better prepared to talk to school — Take a structured report and relevant questions into conversations with teachers and the SENCo.

Get your Clear Picture · £245

More about how Clear Picture works · Read a parent's story

What's in your report

  • A personal response from the Educational Psychologist at the top of the report, in their own words
  • Written using your child's first name, under headings marked 'as reported by you', with your child's views and what school and others have noticed
  • Where things are now: how long it has been going on and the attendance trend
  • When it's harder and when it's easier, set out as times, places, people and what might have been happening
  • What pushes your child away from school and pulls them towards home, and what draws them back
  • What may be keeping it going, explained in plain words
  • An emerging picture of what might be contributing to your child's difficulties, considered through the push-and-pull EBSA framework
  • Suggestions of a few things to explore next, based on where you are now
  • Questions you could ask the SENCo or class teacher, to help you structure a meeting with school
  • A PDF report to keep or take into school to help structure conversations

Every report is built from one family's own words, so we never share real reports. You can see example pages from a made-up report on How it works.

How it works in three steps

  1. Answer carefully designed questionsAbout school, home and what helps, at your own pace. You can save and come back.
  2. An educational psychologist reviews your reportYour answers are brought together into a structured report. A registered educational psychologist reviews and edits it and adds their own professional comment.
  3. Feel better preparedDownload a PDF to keep, or take it into conversations with teachers and the SENCo, with clearer questions about what you have noticed.
Dr Rose Cobb, educational psychologist

An educational psychologist's perspective

Your report is reviewed and edited by a registered educational psychologist, who also adds their own professional comment.

An educational psychologist can often help families and schools make sense of why school has become hard, and EBSA is a common part of that work. A full assessment isn't always available quickly, or needed straight away. Ed Psych Now offers a lighter-touch first step.

Dr Rose Cobb · Educational psychologist · Former teacher, EYFS to post-16 · AEP member · About us

A parent's experience of Clear Picture

Amy completed Clear Picture for her six-year-old son, who had been finding school difficult.

Reading the report, I honestly felt like I wanted to cry. I felt so validated.

Amy, parent of a six-year-old | Clear Picture

Read this parent's full experience

Questions parents ask

Is Clear Picture an assessment or diagnosis?

No. Clear Picture is not an assessment or diagnosis. It is a structured view of what you've shared, with a tentative interpretation looked at through an EBSA framework. It is based only on your answers, without meeting your child or speaking to school, and it says so near the top and on every page. Its ideas to explore are tentative: they are not conclusions, advice or predictions.

Does an educational psychologist read and edit my report?

Yes. A registered educational psychologist reviews and edits the material, considers the information as a whole, and adds their own professional comment and interpretation before the report is released to you. We don't monitor answers as they come in and can't respond quickly.

What does the AI do?

AI assists with organising and assembling information from your questionnaire responses into the report's structured sections, following the framework of the questionnaire. It does not independently provide a psychological assessment or diagnosis, and it is not the author of your report.

See all questions

Ready when you are

When you are ready, Clear Picture gives you a structured way to bring together what you have noticed, with an educational psychologist's perspective.

Get your Clear Picture · £245

Not ready yet? Get the free guide

Cover of the free guide 'Struggling to Go to School: Understanding emotionally based school avoidance', for parents and carers of children aged 4 to 16

Free guide

Not ready yet? Start with our free guide

Struggling to Go to School: Understanding emotionally based school avoidance: a practical guide for parents

If you'd like to read around the subject first, our free 16-page guide is for parents and carers of children aged 4 to 16. Read it at your own pace, and come back to it whenever you need to.

In the guide, you'll find:

  • What EBSA is, and why staying at home can feel so much easier for your child
  • What school might feel like from your child's point of view, from worries about getting things wrong to friendships, sensory overload and being apart from you
  • Gentle ways to talk with your child, with questions you could ask and ideas for listening without rushing to fix things
  • Practical ideas for home, and for working with school on a shared plan

We'll email you a private link to the guide. The link works for 7 days.

Optional. This is separate from the guide: you'll get the guide whether or not you tick. We'll email you once to confirm, and we only add you if you press the button in that email.

We use your email address to send you the guide, and we delete your guide request after 30 days. We only add you to our mailing list if you tick the box and then confirm by email. See our privacy notice.

The guide is general information, not advice about your child.

Worried about a child's safety? Get help now · In an emergency call 999