Today is world Mental Health Day! This post is a little late in the day as the day is nearly over and I guess it’s a little rant about something I feel really passionate about, not just mental health, but children’s mental health in particular. The views are entirely my own and are not in any way politically motivated as I don’t affiliate to any political party. I always use my vote, but politicians have to work for my vote and I’ve spread my vote widely over the years dependent on who is delivering what as actions speak louder than words.
I work in a primary school and we take mental health and children’s mental health very seriously. Today we all wore something yellow to work and our casual clothes and fundraised for Young Mind’s ‘Hello Yellow’ campaign. Now this in itself was quite difficult as I don’t do yellow but I managed to find my yellow flowery happy shirt lurking in the back of my wardrobe! ‘Young Minds’ are a mental health charity for children, young people and their parents, making sure all young people can get the mental health care they need.
I haven’t always worked in a school, for 18 years I had a career in banking. I became disenchanted with banking when I had my children. My hours were long, work was stressful, a lot of travelling away from home was involved and I was working very hard just to make as much profit as possible for a bunch of shareholders I’d never met nor was likely to do so. I wanted to do something where I felt like I made a difference and I absolutely love children so I decided on a career change and ended up firstly in a secondary school (11 to 18 years old), in quite an affluent area, and later in a primary school (3 to 11 years old), in a deprived area where I am still based now.
It’s hard work and it’s opened my eyes and continues to do so. According to the 2019 Index of Deprivation the area the school is in ranks 9 out of 10 (with 10 being the worst) for income, employment, education, health, crime and overall deprivation, but I love working there as there is the potential to make such a difference to the lives of young people.
In 2019 I did my Mental Health First Aid Certificate to enable me to provide First Aid to people who may be experiencing mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and psychosis, another subject I feel passionate about, as it’s ok not to be ok and stuff happens to most of us at some point in our life that we just can’t deal with on our own.
Anyway, two of my passions, children and mental health! So today is an important day, but so is every day and today I have been made aware of some statistics which I have to say have horrified and saddened me and are the reason for me getting on my soap box now.
- According to the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2019 about 7% of children in the UK have attempted suicide by the age of 17 and almost one in four say they have self-harmed in the past year………. that’s 25%!
- According to the children’s society 1 in 6 children or 5 in every class of 30 have a mental health problem.
Now that’s a huge number of children and that first bullet point horrifies me. But what horrifies me more is the lack of action that is being taken to rectify the situation. For me this is a bigger pandemic than Covid and its long-term impact will be far greater. These people are the next generation, we are reliant on them to look after us when we get old.
Over the last 13 years I have gradually seen the demise of the British education system and the wheels have now well and truly dropped off. According to a National Education Union Survey this year 44% of teachers plan to leave the profession by 2027. That’s nearly half the workforce, with teacher recruitment and retention at an all time low. Perhaps it’s about time someone looked at why. The latest Government survey cites Government policy, lack of support from leadership and workload as the 3 main reasons for high turnover.
I’m not saying that the state of the current education system is to blame entirely for the child mental health crisis as there are so many social factors involved and the demise of society in general, but it certainly does not help. School should be a happy place where we nurture and foster the individual strengths of each and every child. We seem to have lost the sight of the fact that they are all different as the Government come up with the latest buzz word and treat them all like a scientific experiment.
The latest buzz work ‘Age Related Expectation’ defines as: what children should have learned, or be able to do, at the end of each Key Stage. It works on the premise that the average child of that age and stage should meet the given standard.
But they won’t all meet the given standard as they are all different!! And we are only testing them in English and Maths, what about those that are good at science, art, languages, humanities! Are we telling them they have failed to meet expectations because they did not achieve age related expectation in a Maths paper and an English paper, they sat on one morning when they were 10 or 11 years of age? Yes, I get that we need a baseline to measure against but there has to be a better way of doing it with less repercussion on the children and it has to come from the top. We have to stop penalising a profession when their pupils fail to meet, what for some, will be an unachievable target and we need to stop making children feel like a failure if they don’t meet that target.
Since when did trying your best and not giving in become not good enough. I have two boys. They have both been through the broken education system. One flew through, one didn’t. He considers the last few years of his secondary school education as some of the worst of his life and I find that sad…..his best was simply not good enough and that was made quite clear to him. I never for one moment had an expectation that academically they would reach that same age-related expectation in Maths and English, they never have been and never will be the same. He’s lucky, I saw him falling and was there to catch him, but not every child has that support network around them. He got up, brushed himself down and makes me so proud every day. He has the most fantastic creative mind, is studying architecture, is a wonderful artist, kind, generous and has the potential to go just as far in this world as anyone who meets ‘Age Related Expectations’.
Government Policy has to change and here is why. The system can only be fixed with competent leadership from the top. Since 2019 we have had six Secretaries of State for Education, yes six, and four of these in 2022, one of whom lasted 36 hours in the job! Each one has a different agenda so no sooner do you put one thing in place to have the tables shuffled again and be shooting off in a completely different direction. There is confusion, lack of clarity, no-one knows what they are doing and in the middle of all this are children!
Below are the last six Secretaries of State for Education and their careers before politics, sourced from Wikipedia. See if you can spot the one thing they all have in common
- 2018-2019 Damian Hinds – Pubs, brewing and hotel industry
- 2019-2021 Gavin Williamson – Management in Fireplace and Ceramics
industry - 2021-22 Nadhim Zahawi – Chemical Engineering
- 2022-22 Michelle Donelan – Marketing
- 2022-22 James Cleverley – Army and Hospitality Management
- 2022 – Kit Malthouse – Accountant
Yes, you’ve guessed it!!! Not one of them has a career background or qualification in anything remotely linked to education (army might be similar on a bad day). These people have never stepped foot in a classroom on a normal day, have no idea what issues these children face on a daily basis and do not see the impact that their policies have on everybody from the headteachers, to the teachers and ultimately to the children. Come on Britain, we have to get this right and get someone on the case who is suitably qualified and gets it or this pandemic really is going to come back and bite us in a few years. It really does show a lack of respect for all of us working in schools who have studied for years to gain related qualifications.
So today, on World Mental Health Day, and every day after, connect with other people, give them a smile or a hug, they might just need it, they might not be ok. Where children are concerned always reassure them that their best is and always will be good enough, highlight their strengths and celebrate the successes and the wonderful little people they are. Let’s stop giving them a hard time because they’ve not achieved the latest pie in the sky target set by a bunch of people out of touch with the reality of what these children are living on a daily basis and the struggles that they are facing.
So that’s it, rant over, back to light hearted posts from tomorrow. I feel so much better for it, I love the fact we live in a democracy and can say what we want. If I’ve offended anybody we’ll have to agree to disagree, I don’t do falling out, life is too short! I’m off now to give someone a hug and a smile on World Mental Health Day! Stay happy, keep smiling and if you aren’t, remember it’s ok not to be ok, reach out, there will be someone there who, like me, will give you a smile and hug you to within an inch of your life on any day of the week, not just today.