Schools in England are deploying £3,500 telepresence robots called AV1 to allow children too anxious to attend in person to take part in lessons remotely. The robot, which has a camera, microphone and speaker, sits at the pupil's desk so they can see, hear and speak to classmates via an app from home, helping tackle a sharp rise in "emotionally based school avoidance" (EBSA) alongside record levels of pupil absence nationally.

More than 2,000 AV1 robots are now in use across at least 80 local authorities, including Devon, Somerset, Dorset, and Haringey and Islington in London, since the Department for Education commissioned the device in 2019. Developed by Norwegian firm No Isolation, the robot lets the absent child rotate its head 360 degrees, use a "whisper mode" to speak privately to a nearby classmate, and remain unseen via a one-way camera. The number of severely absent pupils with mental health-related needs has more than tripled in six years, from 8,453 to 27,442, while 151,000 pupils missed at least half their schooling last year; the manufacturer says 76% of AV1 users have since returned to the classroom.