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Building a ladder with a child
What changes when the person climbing the ladder is eight, and the people holding it are a parent and a school.
The mechanism is identical for children. What changes is who rates the rungs, who holds the plan, and how much of the work is done by the adults around the child.
The child rates it
Adults reliably misjudge which parts are hard. The drop-off is often not the frightening bit; the corridor between the door and the classroom is. Ask, and write down what you are told. A visual scale, a thermometer or a row of faces, works better than a number for under-tens.
Make the rungs small enough to be boring
The bottom of a child's ladder should look almost trivial to an adult: walk past the building on a Sunday, stand in the empty classroom, wave from the gate. Small rungs are not condescending. They are the part that gets climbed.
Reward the attempt, not the outcome
What is being reinforced is turning up and staying, not being calm. A child who went in shaking did the exposure; a child who was calm because a parent stayed did not. Praise accordingly, and be specific about which part you are praising.
One plan, everyone holding it
School refusal in particular collapses when home and school are running different plans. A single page with the rungs, the ratings and the pace on it, agreed with the school, is worth more than a better ladder that only one household knows about. That is what the print view is for.
Accommodation is the parent's version of a safety behaviour
Letting a child skip the assembly, answering the same question again, collecting them at lunch. Each is reasonable in the moment and each one teaches the same thing. These belong on the plan as rungs the adults climb.
Build the ladder
Name the fear and Bia suggests the rungs. Free, and nothing about you is sent.