Unauthorised Absence - Review

HOW does it really feel to be the parent of an autistic child who is struggling both at school and getting to it?

Media representation, fuelled by political agenda and clickbait headline grabbing, have created a narrative that too often suggests one of exaggerated truths, lack of resilience and the seeking of golden tickets.

But the reality is far different, yet too often unheard... drowned out by the cacophony of noise surrounding the education and funding debate.

A new short film, Unauthorised Absence, seeks to reshape the discourse by giving a voice to “the people who are actually struggling on the ground”.

For as producer Natalie Lauren recently told Channel 4 news, the film is designed to “accurately represent the experience of these families” and to do “something about putting the human story back into the conversation that is so dominated by data and by bureaucracy”.

Hence, watching Unauthorised Absence is an intensely personal experience for those families who have lived the experiences that it depicts.

It is, by turns, accurate, honest, traumatic and empowering in the way that it provides that voice and that insight. It allows struggling mums to be seen. It validates a collective experience… one that can too often, by design, be made to feel lonely and isolated.

It exposes the flaws in a system that currently sets too many autistic families up to fail.

And it should hopefully provoke a serious conversation around how things need to change.

As the father of an autistic son who repeatedly struggled at mainstream primary school [to the point of autistic burnout and suicidal ideation], Unauthorised Absence deeply resonated. My wife felt the same.

It brought back old feelings and pain. It provoked tears. And anger.

But it felt heart-breakingly real and hauntingly familiar in its depiction of a reality that has been, and is being, experienced by too many parents and children up and down the country.

In just 15 minutes, Jo Clayton’s script ruthlessly exposes the challenges of trying to survive an education system that isn’t designed to support autistic children (or anyone categorised as SEND).

As the film starts, an early phone call from the school to Emily Bruni’s clearly exhausted mum talks about attendance and how struggling daughter Thea (Beatrice Flaherty) has fallen significantly below the 97% threshold for what is deemed acceptable. She requires a doctor’s letter to be authorised.

It is the starting point for the sustained pressure that will follow.

But it is clear that Thea has already reached a tipping point. She is clearly dysregulated and unable to cope with the prospect of school, refusing to get out of bed, refusing to get dressed, lashing out at mum physically and emotionally and resorting to self-harm (in this case, head butting a wall).

This is the unseen experience that director Georgia Parris brings to life so vividly. It’s hard to watch. But it should be. Yet sadly, this is the everyday reality for too many children and parents.

When mum does finally manage to drag Thea to the school door, a teacher is there to greet her and immediately whips off her hood, sending her insecurities and anxieties spiralling. Parris allows us a glimpse into Thea’s perspective as her senses struggle: sound becomes warped and muffled, vision blurred. It’s immediately overwhelming for her.

It’s an important perspective, giving voice to the one person who so often goes unheard. The child. But it’s kept internal, or masked.

The teacher does not see it. She has what she wants: attendance.

Yet there’s another thing that’s notable in this scene… the reaction of mum throughout. The pain of having to drag her child into a situation she knows is profoundly affecting her daughter’s wellbeing, in order to stave off the threat of action from the school.

I also recognised a feeling of shame, the type of which stems from a feeling of not being believed, let alone supported. Of also having to hand your child over to a teacher, as if you yourself were also somehow back at school, being judged and marked on your performance as a parent.

I used to work across the car park from my son’s school and, each morning, he used to come and visit me before going in, keen for a hug before taking the long walk across the car park. These were the days when he managed to get out of my wife’s car.

My work colleagues would see how he hugged me and regularly told me what a lovely moment it was to witness. But that was the perception. The reality was far different.

The hugs were tight. They weren’t meant to be broken. They were the sign of a child clinging on - a silent, physical call to help, to not go in. I still feel guilt for making him go. For not standing up for him sooner. As does my wife. But when faced against a vast system, you really do feel like you have no choice, that the world is against you.

Unauthorised Absence captures that feeling of despair so well. It’s etched across Bruni’s face.

But things get worse from here (as they invariably do in real life). Thea’s absence gets worse, prompting threats from the school and gaslighting.

Some of the ensuing scenes could be lifted verbatim from some of the exchanges we had with the school, or from the accounts we heard from fellow parents.

The over-emphasis placed on missing a single day of school and its implications for a child's future, the suggestion of a parenting course, or the ultimate gaslighting question: “Is something worrying her at home?”

It’s a transference of culpability that defers responsibility.

Again, things continue to get worse.

Thea is awaiting a formal diagnosis of autism. But this - coupled with her absence - prevents her from receiving sustained support from the school’s Senco.

The validity of her need is continually questioned. When mum suggests an autism diagnosis is being sought, a teacher dismissively replies: “We have autistic children here. Does she need that?”

She cites Thea’s politeness and intelligence as evidence to the contrary - again, completely ignoring the reality of masking. “But she’s really settled here,” is another quote.

The school headteacher goes further. “We all have to do things we don’t want to do. Even Thea.” She even points out that the school has at risk children and children who are escaping war, adding: “Do you think she’s playing you. That’s what children do, isn’t it?”

Such words are like daggers through a parents’ heart - again, brilliantly conveyed by Bruni.

We had “boys will be boys” when we complained about sustained bullying (one incident of which left our son with a swollen bruise the size of an egg on his shin). We also were accused of projecting our anxieties onto our son. And of having no frame of comparison because we didn’t have other children.

And then there was the Senco who told us that applying for an EHCP would be futile because there were too many children ahead of our son, with greater need, so an application would almost certainly fail. The school therefore couldn’t support it.

Our son had been diagnosed autistic and ADHD. Thea was still waiting.

Things come to a head for Thea and mum once the threat of an £80 fine is introduced and implemented. Mum is told there is no right of appeal… and that any representations made to the council over any potential mistakes could mean she misses the window for paying that lower rate. The higher one is double.

An Education Welfare Officer goes further, warning of the possibility of a prison sentence for mum.

“All you have to do is get her in.”

As if it were that simple.

All the time, the number of people (or experts) facing off against mum grows. At one point it’s Thea against four officials, thereby demonstrating the adversarial nature of things. And the intimidating tactics quite often employed.

We thankfully had an advocate in our corner - someone who fought passionately for us and knew the legality of our situation and our rights. But we can recall those meetings and the threats that came at the expense of any attempt to provide understanding, meaningful support or just basic compassion.

There were targets to be met. Attendance criteria. In the background of one pivotal scene, a banner outside the school advertises an Ofsted rating of ‘outstanding’. It’s a clever visual cue of what schools covet most, almost out of necessity.

How many schools pass an Ofsted inspection that rates their SEND provision as good or better... when, in reality, the provision is failing children?

But it’s another sign of how broken the system is. Results before care.

And it arrives just as Unauthorised Absence delivers its final body blow… an emotionally devastating sequence that both brings Thea’s internal struggle to life (via further insights into her sensory experience and mental turmoil) and displays the desperate lengths some children will go to make their suffering stop.

The cold, hard reality is that it too often takes children reaching crisis point (either by openly displaying self-harm, suicidal ideation or worse) to actually be heard. Sometimes that is too late.

Figures released in 2024 by Autism Action found that 35% of deaths in autistic children without a learning disability were due to suicide or deliberate self inflicted harm. This is compared to 14% in non-autistic children.

Furthermore, 56% of deaths in non-autistic children without a learning disability, who were either awaiting an assessment or had autistic traits mentioned in their records, were due to suicide or deliberate self inflicted harm.

Unauthorised Absence exists to expose a system that too often brings children to the brink.

It highlights the often hopeless plight of parents, who are forced into doing the wrong thing to pacify data-led expectations.

It showcases how lonely the fight can be. How debilitating the effects are on the mental health of both parents and children.

It is a powerful, moving and downright essential experience.

And it is one that both deserves and demands to be seen by the widest possible audience… not just the families affected (who will doubtless embrace it, as mine did) but by the teachers and support staff who don’t get to see what happens beyond the school gates, the policy makers who measure a school’s success in terms of behaviour, attendance and results, by the bureaucrats who feel that they know best while keeping an eye on economics, and by so-called media experts who perpetuate the false narratives surrounding all things SEND.

It is also why existing protections and rights must not be compromised (as proposed in current ideas for SEND reform), even as we are promised meaningful change.

Lives, quite literally, depend on it.

Unauthorised Absence may be a short film. But it carries a big and vitally important message.

It is a towering achievement that already seems to be bringing people together and opening up much needed debate (it has prompted community screenings and is scheduled for a parliamentary screening in the House of Commons in December 2026).

It is an unequivocal success. And a tribute to the dedication of those who fought to get it made and the silent struggle of so many parents and children all over the UK.