Mental health specialist in every school....

I agree with you Iam64. Dealing with young people with eating disorders, who cut themselves, hear voices, have anxiety/depression, selective mutism, OCD, ADHD or any of the psychotic disorders, which often show symptoms in older teenagers, requires specialist help.

My "guesstimate" from experience is that at least 3-4% of teenagers have quite serious psychiatric disorders.

Sending somebody on a course and ticking a few boxes isn't going to help, nor is building up resilience in the normal way.

I don't think these disorders are necessarily more common these days, but I think we're better at recognising them and the continual stress caused by assessment doesn't help.

I was once very taken aback when an older lady snapped at me about modern day stress: she went on to tell me about her experience as a child in wartime. Evacuated to strangers, food shortage and the uncertainty that her parents and siblings hadn't been bombed (in London). She had even been strafed by a German pilot as she walked along a country lane. That was stressful she told me unlike the 'first world' problems I had been telling her that children faced today.
She's a nice friendly well adjusted lady and not an old miseryguts!
We started serious exams at 8 in our school..

On the other hand you didn't know about refugees, children being killed or starving to death, wars, nuclear weapons, torture, violent crime, paedophiles, horror films or any of the thousands of other things today's child accesses on TV or computer. Children today have different problems but they are just as valid.
Private school then Jane10 ?

I think it was probably different during the war because everyone around u was in the same boat
We have created so many problems for our youngsters. We seem to live in a goldfish bowl where image is all important
How did we get it so wrong?

Well said trisher, all the points you make are valid. In the past, many children with what we would now recognise as emotional/psychological/psychiatric difficulties were excluded from mainstream. They were sent to huge 'special' boarding schools, where abuse was rife in all its form. Many progressed to special hospitals.

We now have a more well informed and enlightened approach Unfortunately, the money 'saved' when the huge special hospitals and boarding schools were closed down wasn't invested supporting young people or children who were to find inclusion beyond them and end up excluded and put into pupil referral units, or worse, given no educational provision at all. They're the young people most likely to end up in hmp, illiterate, innumerate.

To use the war example, I have lost count of the number of friends who now in their late 60's or 70's realise that the father they feared, who lost his temper, hit them, frightened them was probably suffering some kind of PTSD having been working and surviving on the Burma Railway for example. These were from middle class families, men who were functioning, who returned to professional employment after the war.

There are no simple solutions to complex problems. think of Primo Levy who survived concentration camps, wrote wonderful, life affirming books like If This is Man - who seemed to be managing his awful experiences and living well. He committed suicide in his 80's unable to tolerate his memories.

Just a thought but does the proliferation of access to the internet via mobiles etc contribute to child mental health issues?
Eg online bullying, accessing proana websites, porn in general etc etc as well as messing up sleep patterns.
I know we can't suddenly prevent this access but it must contribute. Add in the observations from the thread about mothers being glued to their phones and completely ignoring children at a crucial age for communication. What will the long term effects of that be? Not great I suspect. We'll end up needing more mental health workers than teachers in school at this rate.

We had tests at school from an early age too, jane10. Your comment just reminded me. I can't remember from before my last two years in primary school (a state school, trisher), but from the age of nine we had class tests every term and one's place in the class was ranked in order depending on the results. In secondary school (also a state school) we had fortnightly averages of homework marks and the top two in each class were named at assembly in front of the whole school.

So I don't think it's testing as such that's stressing kids out so much as people's attitudes to tests, including teachers' attitudes. I think teachers are more stressed nowadays and I wonder if kids pick up in this.

I knew about children starving to death. We were enjoined to eat things we didn"t like because a "child in Africa would love to have it". As one of my friends said she always thought back then: "Well they're welcome to it; I don't want it!"

thatbags you may have known I don't suppose you saw any pictures of children dying. A lot of children do now.
The tests in Primary schools were not really the same. They were part of everyday work, not done on special paper, usually just part of an ordinary day and dependant upon the school. SATs are much more formal

I had tests at primary school too - spelling and tables every week and more formal tests every so often and, of course, there was the 11+. However, they were absolutely nothing like the assessments pupils now have from age 5 to 18.

Almost everything a pupil does is assessed and most secondary schools I know enter levels on to a database. Predicted progress is mapped out and those who are not performing as predicted are highlighted in red. Teachers are under immense pressure to make sure pupils perform as predicted and their own performance related pay is a reflection of their pupils' progress. This shows in the way they treat pupils.

Parents are acutely aware of their children's levels and boast to others about them. Pushy and over-anxious parents can be almost as bad as neglectful ones.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just published a long report about child poverty, which can affect a child's thinking for life.

I really don't think it's helpful to compare children's lives with the past or with those in other countries. Try telling teenagers whose arms are covered with scars from cutting, who are anorexic or are hearing voices that they should pull themselves together, because life was much worse in the olden days.

About ten children from 10-14 commit suicide every year, often with no obvious external cause, such as bullying. Children's mental health services have been devastated by cuts in the NHS and reorganisations which have abolished local education authorities. A mental health worker with inadequate training in every school is no more than a sticking plaster. I doubt if they can afford it anyway.

SATs should be abolished. They distort the curriculum in primary schools. Secondary schools are cynical about them anyway. We always used to know the schools which pushed children through tests and didn't take much notice of them. Most secondary schools administer CATs test in the first few weeks, which are a much better indicator of a child's innate intelligence and a better predictor of GCSE and A level grades.

PS. I omitted that most schools enter levels on to a database/spreadsheet every six weeks.

Famines are, in fact, far less common now than ever before, trisher. Just saying.

I'm not saying there aren't pressures on kids now. I'm just not sure what is causing the apparent rise in mental health problems. I say apparent because I wonder if some of it isn't just earlier recognition.

Yes, there have been cuts to mental health services (and my own daughter has been affected by that) but there is still much more help available to kids now than there was when my sister, for instance, had anorexia. Back then nobody seemed to know much about it and my parents who felt sorely blamed. There is more knowledge now about mental illness as well as more acceptance. Yes, I know there's still stigma but there is far less stigma than there was, except perhaps among ignorant loutish people.

And I reckon ignorant loutish people are definitely in the minority.

Yes, dd, it's the predictions and excessive data collection for blasted league tables that's the root of the problem.

Jane10 you raise an interesting point regarding mobile phones in schools - especially as M Macron has decided to ban them in French schools for all children under 15 years.
How many schools effectively teach children how to stay safe online? How many schools give instruction to children how to use snapchat and videos sensibly without opening themselves up to abuse and bullying? It seems to me we are going to need technology experts alongside mental health experts as the two things are becoming inextricably linked.

Every British state school has to have an online protection policy by law, which should be published on the school's website. Ofsted will assess its effectiveness alongside all other child protection policies and teaching. Many schools already ban mobiles on school premises or have a rule that they must be in bags and switched off. My chidren's school also ran sessions for parents about online safety.

But a policy for this, that and the other isn't enough daphne. A real person who actually is a specialist is needed. We employ IT teachers, but also have a non teaching specialist who sets the filters and who regularly monitors what happens on the computers as well as liaising with police. Likewise most of our teachers are first aiders, but we also employ a fully qualified nurse who can deal with both mental and physical needs.
As someone before mentioned this all comes at a cost and would be impossible to ntroduce across the board.

If the government is looking for ways to save money they should abolish SATs. How much money does the admin etc of these tests cost? They could put the money into CAMHS.

It's all very well and good saying that mobiles should be banned in schools and to some extent I agree, however we are dreading the prospect of DGD having to travel to secondary school at age 11, all alone using 2 buses and waiting for a long period (again alone) at one of the bus stops. We will not know that she reached school safely unless she is able to let us know with a simple text or call. The idiots (and I'm sorry but they are) in our LEA have not/do not consider that she is at risk by travelling this route to school every day alone (the fact that she can see a school, from her bedroom window makes me so angry I want to punch someone in the bloody LEA who couldn't give a stuff) I bet they wouldn't out one of their own children through so much anxiety and worry.

Has this gone to appeal yet Gilly?

All appeal papers are in Anya just waiting for a hearing date although looking at their appeal records I really don't hold out much hope. Poor little thing is so worried about secondary school it is ruining her life.

Not trying to make light of a very serious subject but maybe some of the people in our LEA could do with a seeing mental health specialist. Then we might at least be able to reason with their twisted logic, lack of understanding and compassion.

There's still hope.

Sorry to hear about your DGD gilly. It's not nice to hear of a child being so upset before she even starts secondary education.

Mobile phones only need to be banned from the school gates, they can be used to let parents know the child has arrived. They are collected and placed in a safe box during the school day.

We don't do SATs suzied. You're right, they cost an enormously wasteful amount in admin etc. In their place, however, we have bought an enormously expensive, but valuable, assessment programme. It is updated continuously throughout the year by monitoring each child's progress relative to his/her own achievements.