This article is another reason for my wish to research the stress industry.
Alistair McEwen
5 September, 1999 The Observer
Stressed-out schoolchildren to get counselling
by Martin Bright, Education Correspondent
Telephone help lines are being set up for children stressed by starting
secondary school. And as thousands prepare to make the transition from
primary classes, other counselling schemes are getting under way.
Educationalists believe pupils need help because they are under pressure to
perform well as teachers try to produce better results in
performance-related league tables.
Young Minds, a children's charity, has launched a help line for youngsters
and many local education authorities have followed suit in the run-up to the
new term.
'This is a key issue,' said the charity's director Peter Wilson. 'We know
that a lot of children are coming into school in a more unstable state than
ever before.
'The crossover between mental health work and teaching needs to be better
recognised by politicians, teachers and schools. We are all too obsessed
with behaviour.' The Joseph Leckie School in Walsall has become the first
school in the country to develop special out-of-hours sessions to help
children to make the transition from primary to secondary school.
In response to parental worries about the psychological effects of the move
and wider fears that standards of literacy and numeracy fall drastically at
the time of transfer, teachers at Joseph Leckie bus in pupils from the
nearest two junior schools. Classes are then held with the newcomers and
younger children already at the school. The Bright Sparks Club is run by the
education charity Community Education Development Centre in Coventry.
Observers from the Department for Education and Employment have been so
impressed with the scheme that they are considering extending it to all
schools.
Meanwhile, charities such as Kids Company and The Place to Be train
counsellors to go into schools to help children through traumatic
experiences, including the first days at a new school. A spokeswoman for The
Place To Be said: 'Although we used to get some resistance from teachers,
they now know that the presence of a trained therapist or counsellor in a
special room set aside for the purpose helps children who are having
problems dealing with school.
'The trauma may be starting a new school or something more dramatic such as
bullying, the death of a parent or the horrors undergone by some refugee
children.'
Ministers are known to be concerned about the drop in standards in the first
year of secondary school. A study by Professor Maurice Galton, of Homerton
College, Cambridge, found that seven per cent of children completely
unlearned basic skills in their first year at school and 40 per cent failed
to make satisfactory progress.
The first day of secondary education, which begins this week for most
pupils, is thought by many psychologists to be the most traumatic day of
many children's lives and schools say they are responding to the demands of
parents.
Pupils as young as four are now being tested on basic literacy and numeracy
and many educational psychologists believe youngsters are beginning to crack
under the pressure.
A recent Mental Health Foundation Survey found that one in five children was
suffering from depression, often as a result of school-related problems.
But traditionalists last night criticised the moves and said taxpayers'
money would be better spent on books and teachers.
John Marks, director of the Educational Research Trust, said: 'For
generations people have survived this so-called trauma without its doing
them any lasting damage.
'One thing that would help would be getting children to the right standard
before they go to secondary school.'