Motherland actor calls for end to 'idiotic, cruel' school absence fines

The actor Anna Maxwell Martin, best known for TV shows including Motherland, Line of Duty and Ludwig, has called for more compassion for families struggling with school refusal and a scrapping of fines for non-attendance.

- Sally Weale

A single mother of two teenage daughters, she has previously spoken out about the challenges she has experienced navigating the special educational needs system in England's schools, describing the process as "impossible" and "brutalising".

This week, she called for an end to "cruel and idiotic" fines for parents whose children struggle to attend and a ban on "shameful" school exclusions.

Maxwell Martin said that she had personal experience of dealing with school refusal and described how broken she had felt after some school meetings.

Calling for a more compassionate approach to children struggling to attend, she said: "Children will learn when they want to learn, but if you keep penalising them, and their parents who are doing their best, we're not going to get anywhere. I feel passionately about it because I've had personal experience."

Maxwell Martin, whose estranged husband, the director Roger Michell, died suddenly in 2021, was speaking in support of a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and The Difference education charity, published earlier this week.

The award-winning actor was one among many parents, teachers, school leaders, students and charities to give evidence to researchers, whose report highlighted the problem of "lost learning" and outlined a plan to curb the rise in absence and exclusions within the special educational needs system.