Archive | Pupils RSS feed for this section

Mental Health: a case for placing it centre-stage

18 Apr

I           The Health and Education Select Committee

In the last week of March 2017, MPs on the Health and Education Select Committee received oral evidence from experts in the final session of their joint inquiry into the role of education in preventing mental health problems in children and young people.

Baroness Tyler of Enfield, the chair of the values-based child and adolescent mental-health system commission, Lord Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics, and Natasha Devon, a former government mental health champion, among others, presented evidence.

The main points raised during the session included the following.

  1. Embedding well-being and mental health awareness across the whole school was very important. Baroness Tyler explained that well-being in the school context includes parents and teachers. She welcomed the move to place Sex and Relationships education (SRE) on a statutory footing and called for compulsory personal, social, economic and health education (PSHE) in all schools.
  2. Senior leaders should be encouraged to measure how schools were influencing the well-being of children through surveys, and their integration into school improvement plans. Lord Layard asked the committee to run a pilot with volunteer schools to re-balance the present focus on measuring academic performance only.
  3. The impact of school funding pressures on mental health should be measured. Natasha Devon highlighted the effect of cuts on access to school support services including counsellors, to the enrichment curriculum and to subjects like sports, drama and music which support positive mental health.

The cross-party group of MPs on the Committee questioned ministers on their record on education and children’s mental health. Edward Timpson MP, Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Families, said: “There was still much to be done” to address patchy and variable access to mental health services for young people across the country.

The MPs involved recognised that governing boards are responsible for promoting the well-being of children and young people and required to ensure that they set a supportive ethos and culture.

Continue reading →

Supreme Court rules against term-time holidays for pupils

18 Apr

Jon Platt, a parent living in the Isle of Wight, lost his long-running battle in the Supreme Court on 6 April 2017 with the Council to take his daughter on a seven-day trip to Disney-land in Florida, USA. He had contested the Council’s £60-fine imposed following her absence.  He had argued that his daughter had had a good attendance record leaving parents such as he free to take their children on term-time holidays.

The High Court had backed his case but referred the matter to the Supreme Court.  The Government fought him in that arena, fearing that if he won it would open the floodgates for other parents/carers to make mayhem of their children’s school attendance.

Continue reading →

Unpacking the dilemmas of promoting British Values

1 Jan

Are we losing our way in promoting British values?  Take two recent test cases.

I        A tale of two incidents

(a)        In early November 2016, British Gymnastics suspended Louis Smith, the UK Olympian, after he appeared in an online video in October 2016 with his friend and former gymnast, Luke Carson.  The video shows him pretending to pray to Allah while laughing.   British Gymnastics issued a statement: “Louis Smith admitted his behaviour was in breach of the Standards of Conduct.  The panel upheld the allegation and, taking into account a previous breach of the Standards of Conduct heard in June this year (where it also was made clear to Louis the consequences of any further breach), the panel determine a cumulative penalty was appropriate and order a two-month period of suspension……”

Twenty-seven-year-old Smith accepted offers to learn more about the Muslim faith after admitting he had been “ignorant to people’s religion”.

(b)        Later in November 2016, a row broke out over free speech following a government ban on 32-year-old Milo Yiannopoulos, a right-wing journalist, after an invitation extended to him by sixth former pupils at his former secondary school, i.e. Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury, Kent.  Yiannopoulos is the editor of the far-right news website, Breitbart.   The Department for Education’s Counter Extremism Unit cancelled the arrangement over safety concerns and the “threat of demonstrations at the school”.

Yiannopoulos, labelled by Claire Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas, a “notorious troll and Donald Trump supporter”, is a colourful character, to say the least, who has described feminism as a cancer, called Islam the real culprit of race culture and said women who are offended online should just “log off”.

However, the decision to cancel the journalist’s talk caused a major row over free speech.  More than 200 – 220 to be precise – sixth form students had signed up for the event – with parental permission.

Yiannopoulos wrote: “My old high school has been bullied into cancelling my talk …. by the ‘counter-extremism’ unit at the UK Department of Education.  Who even knew the DoE (sic) had a counter-extremism unit?  And that it wasn’t set up to combat terrorism but rather to punish gays with the wrong opinions.  Perhaps if I’d called the speech ‘Muslims are awesome’ they’d have left us alone. Disgusted.”

A Simon Langton student encapsulated the feelings and thoughts of many of his peers when he said, despite disagreeing with Yiannopoulos’s opinions, he felt the decision to ban his talk was “wrong”. He observed: “I feel the old adage applies: ‘I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”

The school, which expelled Yiannopoulos when he was a student, stated that objections to his talk had come almost “entirely from people with no direct connection to Langton”.

“The staff and students of the school were overwhelmingly in favour,” said Dr Matthew Baxter, the Headteacher.  “While disappointed that both, the pastoral care and intellectual preparation we offer to our students, have been called into question, we, at Langton, remain committed to the principle of free speech and open debate, and will resist, where possible, all forms of censorship.”

Continue reading →

Ofsted Annual Report 2015/16

1 Jan

Preamble

Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools (HMCI), published his fifth and final Ofsted annual report on the education system in England on Thursday, 1 December 2016.  He retired 30 days later.  In presenting the report, Sir Michael said “a world class education system is within our grasp – but only if serious capacity challenges are urgently addressed”.

Sir Michael stressed that a north/south ‘geographical divide’ meant the ablest pupils in the North and Midlands were less likely to reach A/A* at GCSE. He said: “Standards can only truly be considered high if they are high in every part of the country and for all pupils regardless of background or ability.”

However, his report is, in the main, positive.    The country’s schools/academies, he avers, had made progress over the last five years. Educators could be justly proud.  “Young people are getting a better deal than ever before,” he said.  School/academy leaders responded well to the changes in the system.  The decision to replace the “satisfactory” judgement with “requires improvement” led to schools/academies upping their game, making a greater effort ensuring that pupils are offered the very best possible education.     Of the former 4,800 satisfactory primary schools/academies, 79% were now good or outstanding and, of the previous satisfactory secondary ones, 56% were good or better.

Continue reading →

Call to raise the profile of and provision for mental health in schools and academies

1 Jan

For the well-being of a nation to be promoted, children’s mental health must be safeguarded.  They are our future.   We commit a heinous crime by neglecting children’s welfare and happiness.   However, children’s mental health is taking a backseat in the provision we make for them within our schools/academies and the wider society.  The focus, at times, is exclusively on a narrow curriculum dominated by English and Mathematics and, when in their teens, the English Baccalaureate.

In the 61st issue of Governors’ Agenda, (see here) we focused on the promotion of children’s mental health.  It is now time to revisit this important matter, especially as there have been developments.

Emily Frith of the Education Policy Institute published in November 2016 Children and Young People’s Mental Health: Time to Deliver.  The report calls for a “high profile, national government programme to ensure a stronger focus on mental health and wellbeing within schools”. The recommendations in the report – set out in three sections – are as follows.

Continue reading →

Developing children’s financial nous

28 Aug

The love of money is the root of much evil, but money, per se, makes the world go round.   Maslow would, in all probability, have placed money at the base of his triangle of human motivation – an essential for meeting physiological needs, which includes food, water, warmth and rest.  The best things in life may be free – such as the air we breathe, the songs of birds that we hear and the happiness emanating from the good life.  However, to appreciate these, human beings need food, water and creature comforts, which are not available unless humans have enough money.

It is sad, therefore, that in the United Kingdom, we have accumulated a national debt of £1.5 trillion – a debt that we will be expecting our children, grandchildren and future generations to pay back to the world.  And this debt can increase.

Schools/academies are suspect for not devoting sufficient time to teaching pupils/students how to manage money. Why else would so many, in a straw poll of 2,500 students between the ages of 11 and 16 carried out by The Times Educational Supplement (TES), list financial themes among the 100 things they would like to do before they finish their schooling such as “Learn what to do if you are in debt”, “Learn how to save money” and “Learn about taxes, mortgages and rent”.   In short, they are keen to learn how to survive (if not flourish) in the world of austerity that they will face. Continue reading →

Child obesity: a weighty problem

28 Aug

I           The growth of obesity

I promise you that I am not a ‘fattist’! Some of my best friends and colleagues are fat.  However, we need to confront a situation which is not doing us any good.

Discriminating against people because of their race or gender is unfair.   People don’t have the option of being male or female, black, white or any of the shades in between.  However, we do have the choice in deciding what and how much we eat.

Would you say that we discriminate unfairly against smokers by banning them from smoking indoors?  No.  If they want to harm themselves, so be it.  The problem is they harm others – even when they smoke on our thoroughfares, polluting the air we breathe when taking a walk.   I resent having to share a bus-stop, for instance, with a “chimney” as the smoke damages my health.

In the same way, people who are overweight or morbidly obese disadvantage others in myriad ways.   For instance, consider the space they consume in trains, tubes, buses and, yes, even in aeroplanes.   When an obese person is hospitalised, special wheelchairs have to be rolled out to accommodate their bulk.   They need larger than usual beds. They also pose a huge expense to the National Health Service (NHS) because of weight-related illnesses.    Continue reading →

Pupil Exclusion: Legal Requirements and Good Practice

28 Aug

I           Introduction

The most daunting and challenging aspect of school governance after that of appointing a headteacher, is dealing with the aftermath of a pupil exclusion by the headteacher.  Governors are exhorted to develop policies where all pupils may thrive.  An implicit requirement is the promotion of inclusion. Youngsters should feel part and parcel of the school community, where they are safe and happy.  Yet, it is open to the headteacher to exclude a pupil that does not fall into line with the school’s behaviour policy.   Theoretically, the concept is anathema to the running of an outstanding school.  In fact, Ofsted inspectors raise quizzical eyebrows whenever they make judgements on schools if pupils are ‘turfed’ out routinely.

Yet, there are some pupils, for a multitude of reasons who make it impossible not only for them to thrive but also their peers.  They are disruptive, aggressive, inattentive and, altogether, unwelcome to the school community.   How often have I heard it said that such-and-such a pupil is like a virus or bacterium to the school-body politic and has no place in education.   Yet, we have a legal (if not moral) responsibility to educate all our children – if the parents of a child so choose to have them educated at school (and not otherwise with home-tutoring).

So how can governors deal with this burning issue without getting themselves burnt? At the outset, the governing body has to establish a pupil behaviour policy.  In an academy or a multi-academy trust (MAT), the trust, per se, will determine who is responsible for constructing such a policy.

A good policy will set out the school’s/academy’s expectations of pupils.  It will describe strategies for promoting good behaviour – especially opportunities for children to learn how to live in amity with one another and adults – and the rewards they may expect.

The policy will describe the measures the school will take to bring them to heel where, despite the best efforts of the staff, pupils misbehave.  It will be a hierarchy of sanctions.  In extremis, pupils could be excluded for fixed-term periods, and after that, permanently.

Statutory guidance from the Department for Education states that permanent exclusion should be used as a last resort, when all other methods for promoting the child’s good behaviour fails. It must be lawful, reasonable and fair. The policy should explicitly state the kinds of behaviour which will result in permanent exclusion, such as peddling drugs – in or outside the school – and bringing a weapon to school.

A school may not discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics such as disability, race and/or gender.  It must give particular attention to vulnerable pupils treating them fairly.    It also states that only the headteacher may exclude, unless, of course, s/he is unwell or the post vacant, in which case, the deputy headteacher or acting headteacher is empowered to exclude.  Continue reading →

Teacher and columnist appointed Behaviour Supremo

25 Aug

In mid-June 2015, Mr Tom Bennett, a former nightclub bouncer, who retrained to become a teacher and is teaching at a secondary school in East London, was appointed by Mrs Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Education, to carry out a study of pupil behaviour and advise the nation on how teachers could be “better prepared to deal with the realities of the classroom”.  He has been asked to form a working party to assist him in this task.

Mr Bennett plans to work with people who have substantial experience of handling poor behaviour in schools, i.e. teachers.  Writing in The Times Educational Supplement, he said: “Together, we hope to come up with recommendations that can offer new and old teachers the tools they need to do what they were trained to do.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thrilled to be doing this.  Just don’t call me ‘Tsar’, for God’s sake.”

Mr Bennett intends to draw up plans to help staff members deal with “low-level disruption”, a beta noire of the teaching profession and something onto which Ofsted inspectors constantly latch.  He will lead a group created by the Department for Education to develop better training for teachers to tackle pupil misbehaviour.

Teachers are turning in increasing numbers to the tips that he provides on the internet, to deal with difficult school situations.

Mr Bennett is a Teacher Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the director of ReserachED. Since 2008, he has been writing for the TES and has written four books on teacher-training, behaviour management and educational research.

Campaign to improve young people’s mental health develops steam

13 Apr

(1)       Campaign of The Times

Children’s health and well-being have become national issues.   Schools are finding it increasingly difficult to promote them as they have to countenance a rise in the incidence of mental ill-health among their pupils.   In fact, mental ill-health has become such a big issue that The Times has been running a campaign Time to Mind to draw its readers’ attention to the inadequacy of provision and prompt the government to take action to do something about redressing the balance for our young folk.  It appears that provision for children’s mental health is being seriously denied.  The NHS allocates only 6% of its budget to mental health overall and 0.6% to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

An investigation by The Times revealed that vulnerable children with mental health problems are being forced to wait for up to three-and-a-half years for assessments and almost two years for treatment. Continue reading →

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →