Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Children Society’s report entitled The Good Childhood Report 2020, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for its policies on promoting the wellbeing of children.

The Good Childhood Report highlights a wide range of issues across children and young people’s lives which affect their wellbeing. The department has engaged with the Children’s Society and other sector organisations in recent months to discuss how we can continue to build support in different areas to improve their wellbeing.

The report particularly highlights issues with peer relationships and appearance as being relevant to children and young people in England. These are among the topics that are covered in relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) which we are introducing in schools for the first time from this September, to ensure all pupils are taught about these aspects of their lives. The department is committed to supporting all schools in their preparations to deliver RSHE, and is providing an extensive range of training materials to support high quality teaching to all pupils, including a module on mental health and wellbeing, that we made available in July, to help schools focus on those issues as pupils return to school.

The government has been supporting this with a significant focus on wellbeing and mental health support linked to schools and colleges to help them to promote good wellbeing. This includes our programme, jointly with NHS England, to provide mental health support teams linked to groups of schools and colleges which is rolling out across the country. Our commitment is to make available training to schools by 2025 to support them to put in place senior mental health leads. We know that around 80% of schools and colleges already have a dedicated staff lead in place. The training will support new and existing leads to put in place effective whole school approaches to mental health. This is in addition to longer term support to schools on tackling bullying, where we are providing £750,000, this year, to 3 organisations to help address different factors. We are also funding a large-scale programme of randomised control trials of different approaches to promoting wellbeing in schools to find out what works.

We have also placed a particular focus on wellbeing support for children and young people during the COVID-19 outbreak and as they return to school and college. We have highlighted wellbeing in all our guidance, providing access to a range of materials and training.

This includes 2 webinars delivered by the department in July, in collaboration with Public Health England and NHS England, to support teachers and local partnerships to further support children and young people’s mental health as they return to school. These reached thousands of teachers and other education staff.

To further support the return in September, the government is investing £8 million in the Wellbeing for Education Return training and advice programme, which will provide schools and colleges ,all over England, with the knowledge and practical skills they need to support teachers, students and parents, to help improve how they respond to the emotional impact of the
COVID-19 outbreak. More information can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/8m-programme-to-boost-pupil-and-teacher-wellbeing.