Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to (a) implement the recommendations of the Children Society's report entitled The Good Childhood Report 2020 and (b) widen the scope of the education recovery package announced in February 2021 to include children’s wellbeing.

The government appreciates the concerns raised from the findings of the Children Society’s Good Childhood Report 2020. We believe that the safety and wellbeing of children and young people is of fundamental importance, and the government is supporting the education sector to identify and respond to children and young people’s individual needs. It is crucial that children and young people are able to access the help and support they require to keep them healthy and safe.

We look at the range of data that is available on children’s wellbeing. On World Mental Health Day 2019, we published the first annual ‘State of the Nation’ report to highlight the trends and issues in young people’s mental wellbeing. The report brought together existing data to improve understanding and help to inform the support we provide to children and young people. We published a second report in 2020, which focused on the experiences of children and young people during the COVID outbreak. It is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-of-the-nation-2020-children-and-young-peoples-wellbeing.

To support this work, we are working with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to deliver our joint green paper delivery programme. The government’s 3 core commitments are to incentivise and support all schools and colleges to identify and train a senior mental health lead, to fund new Mental Health Support Teams supervised by NHS mental health staff and to pilot a 4 week waiting time for accessing specialist NHS mental health services.

We are supplementing this with other support, including a randomised control trial of a range of different school approaches to promoting good mental wellbeing which is one of the largest of its kind in the world. This sits alongside guidance on mental health and behaviour and offering effective school-based counselling.

The government has made children’s mental health and wellbeing a central part of our response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The return to school for all pupils on 8 March was prioritised due to the significant and proven impact caused by being out of school, including on wellbeing.

We have been clear that schools can use their existing additional COVID-19 catch-up funding for pastoral support for mental wellbeing where pupils need it, and many schools are doing so. In addition to this, the return to school for all pupils on 8 March has been supported with a new £700 million package, which includes a new one-off Recovery Premium for state primary, secondary and special schools to use as they see best to support disadvantaged students. This will help schools to provide their disadvantaged pupils with a one-off boost to the support, both academic and pastoral, that has been proved most effective in helping them recover from the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.