No official statistics are available for children suffering from school phobia in the UK. However, according to Anxiety Care (see Useful Contacts) the number of children who dislike school, and avoid it whenever possible, is probably more than five per cent of the school age population; but less than one per cent could be genuinely called school phobic. The Royal College of Psychiatrists suggests that between five and ten per cent of children and young people have anxiety problems bad enough to affect their ability to live a normal life
