Schools urged to focus on social and emotional skills

This is the message from a leading academic, who has compiled a briefing for schools offering guidance, ideas and resources.

The 14-page document has been created by Professor Fiona Brooks, head of adolescent and child health research at the University of Hertfordshire, on behalf of government body Public Health England.

In it, she presents evidence of the strong link between education outcomes and health, and argues for the curriculum-based teaching of social and emotional skills, such as resilience. These kind of programmes have been seen to improve pupils’ attainment by 11 per cent, the paper states.

It adds: “School-based programmes of social and emotional learning have the potential to help young people acquire the skills they need to make good academic progress. They also produce benefits to pupils’ health and wellbeing, offering a significant return for the resource and time investment by schools to establish such programmes.”