In this editorial column last week, I pledged to continue SecEd’s campaign to spread best practice and encourage an increasing focus on the mental health of our young people (see the article here).
Themes of wellbeing and mental health crop up almost every week in SecEd’s pages, both in our news articles and best practice and opinion pieces. This week, this has been particularly the case.
First, the children’s commissioner Anne Longfield reminded us all of the “urgency around mental health”. Giving evidence to the Education Select Committee, she discussed her views about the need for improved, statutory PSHE in schools, including a focus on mental health and the “anxieties children are facing” (see the article here). These are “mainstream issues”, she added.
At the same time, the chairs of the Education, Health, Home Affairs, and Business Select Committees have written to education secretary Nicky Morgan also urging statutory status for PSHE and sex and relationships educations (SRE) (see the article here).
This follows the Education Select Committee’s inquiry and report into PSHE last year – entitled Life Lessons – which made a series of sensible recommendations, including calling for statutory status. Sadly the government dismissed most of the ideas and side-stepped the statutory question, promising a fuller response later in 2015. However, it’s now 2016 and still nothing has been heard from ministers.
It is clear from the Select Committee’s work, as well as other investigations (not least by Ofsted) and research that PSHE and SRE are incredibly inconsistent across the country’s schools, meaning many students are being badly let down.
What beggars belief is that this is permitted at a time when young people are facing a range of challenges and dangers to their health and wellbeing the likes of which we have never seen – issues that have only begun to emerge fully in the last 10 years. For example, it is clear that in 2016 we have challenges over sex and relationships, including the alarming rise in the viewing of pornography by children as young as 11 (as reported to MPs by Ms Longfield). Tied into this are issues of consent (also linked to pornography and the resulting unrealistic expectations that viewing these films gives to young people).
I should not need to mention child sexual exploitation (CSE) and abuse either – the need for our young people to be able to recognise abuse and exploitative behaviour has never been more vital.
In her evidence, Ms Longfield also raised this issue, repeating figures she published last year estimating that 450,000 children were abused from 2012 to 2014 but that only 1 in 8 were identified by professionals. She said that PSHE and SRE had a key role, both in helping young people to recognise abusive behaviour and relating to issues of consent.
Issues of radicalisation are also high on the agenda of course and other issues of general online safety, including cyber-bullying, use of social media, digital footprints, and much more also need to be tackled urgently. The urgency of this agenda is illustrated by more research this week, this time from Action for Children, showing that a quarter of parents are finding it difficult to unplug their children from their screens (see the article here).
Our children are living their lives online, exposed 24/7 to threats to their wellbeing – and yet we still apparently consider that PSHE and SRE should not be statutory curriculum subjects.
And while there are many wider issues involved here, I do not need to explain to SecEd’s readership the many and varied links that all of the above have to young people’s mental health.
Schools are on the frontline in tackling radicalisation, CSE, addressing the effects of our overly sexualised society, and the impact of our 24/7 online culture. The Department for Education (DfE) ultimately needs to get a grip on PSHE and SRE. As Ms Longfield told MPs, statutory status alone will not solve the problems of inconsistency, but it will send a clear message about its status and importance.
Furthermore, if the DfE took heed of the other recommendations from the Education Select Committee’s excellent report then, combined with statutory status, perhaps we might begin to achieve a consistent and high-quality national picture for PSHE and SRE. And if we can do that, then the mental health of our children and young people will undoubtedly be in a better place than it is now.
- Pete Henshaw is the editor of SecEd and has been writing about education for more than 10 years. Email editor@sec-ed.co.uk and follow @pwhenshaw
Further reading
Life Lessons: PSHE and SRE in schools, Education Select Committee, February 2015: http://bit.ly/1Qaw3Hs