Many children don't like going to school – but that’s very different from having a school phobia.

New research suggests that one in five UK children suffer from school phobia, where they're anxious and fearful about attending school and refuse to go, or make excuses to avoid it.

However, such a phobia can be differentiated from simply not wanting to go to school, or playing truant, by the fact that children with a phobia want to attend school, but feel they’re unable to.

The new research, by the parenting site Netmums, found the most common reason for such a phobia was bullying, with parents claiming it was the trigger behind almost a quarter of cases.

A further 23% said it was caused by kids feeling they weren’t performing well enough at school, while 19% said their child was overwhelmed by the size of their school.

However, psychologists point out that stress at home, such as parental separation, may be the underlying cause of school phobia.

Studies show the peak age for school phobia, which is also known as school refusal, is between 11 and 13 years, and up to 2% of school-age children may be school refusers.

However, just 52% of the 1,054 parents polled by Netmums were aware of the condition, which commonly manifests itself by children faking illnesses on school mornings, or even becoming ill with real stress-related headaches and stomach aches.

The poll found that half of children with school phobia were ‘very worried and distressed’ the night before school, more than a third refused to leave the house on school mornings, and a quarter wouldn't walk through the school gates.

Others say they’re going to school and then don’t turn up, or go into school for registration and then leave.

Netmums founder Siobhan Freegard said: “School refusal is a devastating condition that blights the lives of both parents and children. It’s incredibly stressful for parents to watch their children suffer and horrible for the children involved.

Professor Julian Elliott, an educational psychologist at Durham University, says that while parents often don’t know their child is truanting, they’re usually aware if he/she has school phobia.

“The school phobic usually wants to go to school but is unable to – they’re unhappy about the circumstances and are psychologically unable to attend,” he said. “There are a lot of other kids who just don’t want to be at school, but they don’t have a psychological reaction, with high levels of anxiety and associated somatic complaints.”

Parents may not always realise the problem is school phobia, he says, as it’s sometimes presented as a physical condition such as stomach ache.

Elliott, co-author of the book Children In Difficulty, stressed that when schoolphobic children say they have an ailment such as a stomach ache, parents shouldn’t let them stay off school.

“You’re generally better getting them into school regularly,” he said. “As soon as they’re home, in that safe, womb-like environment, getting them back into school is a lot harder.”

He says it is vital for parents to work out the reason behind the school phobia, pointing out that while there are often a multitude of causes, including bullying, work pressures or feeling overwhelmed by a huge new school, they are often underpinned by anxiety at home.

“In the vast majority of cases that I work with, there’s something in the child’s home life which has unsettled them,” he said.

“This might be when parents are splitting up – the child feels powerless when his mum and dad are arguing, and if he stops going to school, the parents will suddenly have to be united to try to get him back to school.”