Schools In Denmark Add Breaks To Curb Rising Absenteeism

In response to rising cases of absenteeism in schools in Denmark, a local school principal proposes increased breaks during the school day to better accommodate students struggling with traditional learning structures. A new report indicates that up to 15% of Danish children have experienced significant absence in the primary school.

Growing Concern About School Avoidance in Schools in Denmark

Following national attention brought by DR’s recent documentary “Skolens tabte børn” (“The School’s Lost Children”), discussions around school refusal among Danish children have intensified. Among those actively pursuing solutions is Marlene Rosgaard, principal of Skivehus School in the western Danish town of Skive. Like many educators in Denmark, she has witnessed firsthand a growing number of students unable to complete a full school day, slowly transitioning from partial to full-day absences.

Absence at schools in Denmark is on the rise. National figures indicate that up to 15% of Danish children experience significant school absenteeism before completing their compulsory education. The trend reflects a broader challenge faced by Denmark’s public schools, where increasing demands on student focus, academic performance, and social engagement are contributing to anxiety and stress levels.

A New Approach in Schools in Denmark: Breaks as a Solution

To counter this, Rosgaard proposes a low-threshold intervention: inserting additional breaks and safe spaces into students’ schedules to help mitigate stress. Rather than shortening the school day outright, the initiative would focus on modifying how the school day is structured to make it more manageable for students susceptible to school avoidance.

Children showing signs of withdrawal, stress, or emotional overload would be allowed dedicated time outside the classroom during the school day. Rosgaard emphasizes that these breaks are not intended as leisure time but as structured periods of recovery designed to help students remain connected to the school environment and return to learning more successfully.

Academic Impact and Professional Views

One concern often raised in such proposals is the potential loss of academic teaching hours. However, experts argue that short-term reductions in classroom time can be outweighed by the long-term benefits in student engagement and school retention. According to Simon Calmar Andersen, Professor and Director of the Danish Tryg Foundation’s Child Research Center at Aarhus University, the quality of school participation often matters more than quantity when dealing with vulnerable students.

He supports the notion that brief periods away from instruction, when used correctly, can actually prevent more serious long-term absences and foster better re-integration into everyday school life.

Maintaining Connection to the Community

Under Rosgaard’s vision, these break periods would differ from traditional recesses. Instead, they would function as calm, supervised environments where children can decompress—perhaps by doing activities such as board games, puzzles, or simply taking a walk with a trusted adult. A key goal is to maintain the child’s relationship with school as a community and reduce feelings of alienation.

Many Danish educators have emphasized that children generally want to be part of the classroom and interact with peers. Rosgaard and other school leaders believe that children rarely avoid school out of laziness; school avoidance tends to stem from emotional or psychological distress.

Involving the Local Community

To bring the idea to life, Rosgaard is looking beyond school budgets to local communities. She envisions recruiting volunteers – potentially retired teachers or senior citizens- to help facilitate these break sessions. These additional human resources could support overwhelmed school staff in providing personalized attention without disrupting overall teaching schedules.

Volunteer-based strategies are not new in Danish educational settings. In 2022 alone, over 6,000 retirees across Denmark volunteered their time in youth mentoring, language assistance, and social support capacities within school environments, according to data from Ældre Sagen, Denmark’s largest senior advocacy organization.

A Broader Trend in Well-Being-Focused Education in Schools in Denmark

The Skivehus School initiative is part of a broader nationwide shift toward well-being-oriented schooling. The Danish Ministry of Education has in recent years encouraged schools to adopt more flexible and individualized approaches to student needs, especially in light of mental health trends. Reports from Denmark’s Health Authority show that psychological stress affects 35% of Danish students between the ages of 11 and 15, a statistic that has nearly doubled over the past decade.

By taking a more adaptive and compassionate stance, schools like Skivehus aim to prevent early signs of distress from escalating into entrenched behavioral or mental health issues. Flexible models like break rooms or restorative spaces are seen as relatively low-cost, high-impact tools that support vulnerable children before more intensive interventions are required.

Looking Toward Sustainable Implementation

As policymakers continue to debate large-scale reforms in Danish education, local initiatives like Rosgaard’s serve as potential blueprints. Realistically, resource constraints and staffing shortages may limit how widely this can be implemented in the short term. However, experts agree that re-thinking the structure of the school day is a step toward re-engaging a generation increasingly at risk of falling through the cracks.

Efforts to provide personalized, empathetic responses to school avoidance may be a key factor in reversing this troubling trend, and in making schools places that all children can belong, grow, and succeed.

Maria van der Vliet

Writer

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