Children too anxious to attend school are being represented at their desks by £3,500 robots that let them join lessons from home.

The AV1 robot has a camera, microphone and speaker enabling a child at home to see, hear and speak to classmates via an app.

More than 2,000 are being used nationwide, many by children with ’emotionally based school avoidance’, or EBSA – a chronic refusal to go to school driven by anxiety.

Teachers place the robot on the child’s usual desk and ask them questions as though they were there, while the pupil at home can simply reply, as well as swipe their screen to turn the robot’s head through 360 degrees.

Read more: Councils buy thousands of £3,500 ROBOTS which ‘represent’ anxious schoolchildren in classrooms so they can join lessons from home