Education Route Map: Covid-19

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this debate. It has been a pleasure to work with him and the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who stepped in so ably at short notice just now.

Nelson Mandela said:

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.”

Yet too often in this pandemic, I fear that children have been an afterthought for the Government.

I very much welcome the prioritisation earlier this week of schools in the road map, and I pay tribute to September for Schools, a nationwide campaign group, founded by my constituent Fiona Forbes, which has relentlessly sought to ensure that parents’ and pupils’ voices are heard on this issue. The welcome funding commitment to children’s recovery is between 3% and 4% of the annual schools budget, which was already under significant strain and now, strangely, yet further under strain. Many schools in my constituency are out of pocket from covid expenses, which are not being reimbursed by the Department, and have lost income, so there is a real danger that some of the catch-up premium could be diverted into the funding gaps. The extremely worrying educational attainment and disadvantage gaps that have grown through this pandemic must be addressed as a priority, but they will not be tackled in one or two terms and a summer holiday. We need a long-term plan spanning several years, and it needs to be holistic, addressing children’s academic and also social and emotional recovery, taking into account extracurricular activities such as art and sport.

There absolutely must be a greater focus on supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. We know there has been a significant increase in the number of children with a diagnosable mental health condition—one in six in 2020, up from one in nine in 2017. I have heard from young people in my constituency the anxiety that they are struggling with during lockdown. Despite that, the vast majority of the Government’s catch-up funding is focused on academic catch-up. Only £8 million is specifically committed to wellbeing, but all the evidence suggests that children and young people will not be able to catch up academically if they are not in a good place emotionally. To maximise the value and impact of the academic catch-up plan, wellbeing support is critical, as well as accelerating the roll-out of both mental health support teams and training for the designated mental health leads in schools. I urge the Minister to look very seriously at a ring-fenced resilience fund that allows schools to provide bespoke mental health and wellbeing support packages, as appropriate to their pupils and their context.

I want to end by paying tribute to the amazing school staff in my constituency. They are delighted that children are coming back to school in a couple of weeks, but they are exhausted, stressed and burnt out. They have been juggling classroom and remote teaching, testing and implementing new guidance at short notice. A long-term plan for schools must put children at its heart, but focus on staff morale, wellbeing and development as well as pay.