What Can Overstretched Schools Do About The Mental Health Crisis?
By Dr Andy Cope
What-if?
First up, an innocent question – is your current approach to mental health working? If your staff are bursting with energy and enthusiasm, well done. This article’s not for you.
If the pupils/students in your school are focused, attentive and ‘learning ready’, ditto.
Everyone else, listen up…
In the same way that Bono announces that ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ is not a rebel song, this is not an anti-schools or anti-government article. Plot spoiler – it’s NOT going to mention smartphones or social media. It’s not about causes, it’s about solutions.
Brace yourself and imagine a series of ‘what ifs?’
- What if the current education system is flawed?
- What if we could start the schools blueprint again? If we had a blank sheet of paper, what would amazing education look like?
- What if we reversed the school inspection regime and put the pupils in charge? What do you think they’d like to see improve?
- What if we changed the focus of schools away from ‘get great grades and then you’ll be happy’ to ‘be happy now, because that’s the key to great grades’?
- What if we equipped our learners with the knowledge and skills to raise their own aspirations, motivation, happiness and mental health?
- What if instead of looking at what’s wrong with people, we looked at what’s right?
- What if we quit waiting for someone else to change the system, and take personal responsibility for driving change?
‘Customer-Driven’
There’s a dichotomy at the heart of the British education system.
If I asked you, ‘what is the ONE thing you want for your own children?’, your unequivocal answer would be ‘happiness’. Indeed, that is the number one response from parents across the world.
If I asked you a follow-up question, ‘what do schools teach?’, you would mull it over before answering ‘maths’, ‘English’, ‘subjects’ or maybe ‘exams’. ‘Happiness’ and/or ‘wellbeing’ wouldn’t be in your top 20 responses. Hence the dichotomy – we want flourishing kids and ‘the system’ is churning out an anxious generation. If this was the business world, they’d argue that there’s a huge mismatch between what your ‘customers’ want and what the education system is delivering.
There is no doubt that ‘testing’ and ‘exam grades’ are crucial pillars of the education system. But there’s also no doubt that exam results are not the only measure of ‘success’. The school system needs to be producing awesome young people who shine with enthusiasm, confidence, zest, humility, courage, gratitude, happiness, resilience, respect and who are able to lead flourishing lives. In short, we need amazing citizens.
The K-Shaped recovery
School staff can’t work any harder. The pips are squeaking! Burnout is rife. Staff are leaving the profession. The post-Covid world is characterised by a K-shaped recovery.
I see it all the time when I visit schools. Some kids struggled in the pandemic, fell behind with their learning, and have given up hope. Everything’s on the decline. They can only see a bleak future so learning and behaving seems pointless. They’re languishing – getting physically, emotionally and mentally unwell. Schools are exhausting themselves trying to cope with those who are languishing.
A few are flourishing. Superbly home-schooled during the pandemic, heir learning has taken off. They’re flying.
The K-shape isn’t just in schools. It’s mirrored in society. The rich are getting richer (and the poor poorer), the healthy are getting healthier (the unhealthy, unhealthier), etc. Rather than levelling up or narrowing the gap, K-shaped chasm is getting wider. This opens up a whole new problem for classroom teachers. Not only in how to deal with the disruption caused by those who’ve given up with their behaviour and learning, but with such a gap, where the heck do you pitch your lesson?
The reality is that children and young people are living in a toxic world where screen time dominates. Rising rates of stress, anxiety and burnout amongst young people (and teachers) suggest that the current system needs a re-think.
Creeping Anxiety
Here’s a mental health history lesson. After the first world war, 1 in 1000 people were diagnosed with a mental health problem. After the second world war it was 1 in 100, in the 1980s it was 1 in 100. Now it’s 1 in 4. In some classrooms, three-quarters of children have a diagnosis of some sort. That’s one heck of an acceleration of mental ill-health. I’ve done some calculations that suggest that by 2027 it will be abnormal to be undiagnosed. Children’s will be labelled as ‘special’ for NOT having a mental health issue. (My favourite diagnosis is SWANY: Syndrome Without A Name Yet)
The government, in a misguided effort to be seen to be doing something, announces another multi-billion pound package to provide counselling and therapy for young people. Let’s be clear. The solution is not to put children right after the system has almost killed them – it is to change the system.
But change it to what?
Re-booting education
The system is stubborn, so rather than waiting (and waiting, and waiting, and waiting for change) I’ve made my move. Step forward ‘Brilliant Education’. Derived from the science of positive psychology (the study of human flourishing) our project is not a radical solution that requires a complete re-think. It is a tweaking of the system and a rearranging of our priorities so the education system can give its ‘customers’ exactly what they want – happy, bright children with a love of learning and who play an active part in flourishing communities.
Think about it. If we want children to be good at maths, we teach them maths. If we want them to know about the World Wars, we teach them history. Ditto French, science, ox-bow lakes, how to make a Victoria sponge…
It’s exactly the same with human flourishing. If we want young people who are confident, purposeful, positive, optimistic, creative, resilient, altruistic and present – we need to tach them how.
Brilliant Education is about building wellbeing, resilience and growth mindset into the school curriculum. Indeed, at its purest level, it’s about putting happiness, confidence, wellbeing, gratitude and strengths on par with traditional subjects. Imagine a timetable where ‘double happiness’ was given equal status as ‘double maths’? An education system that puts ‘wellbeing’ centrally, with the curriculum built around it? This revolution would require a culture change where the staff really ‘get it’ and have bought into the benefits of putting wellbeing first.
The happiness inspector calls
What? Putting ‘wellbeing’ on par with ‘maths’? You’d need to be crazy to do that!
The wellbeing revolution is already happening. We have been working with a number of schools who really do ‘get it’ – where the staff have bought into the benefits of putting happiness first. If you visit those schools, the staff and pupils are thriving.
In a delicious twist of educational logic, we deliver the science of positive psychology to the pupils and they then design and deliver their own wellbeing curriculum across their school and community. Then, in a double twist of irony, we re-visit the school 6-months later and conduct a wellbeing inspection (almost exactly the opposite of Ofsted) where the children present what they’ve achieved. What have they done to improve their own learning and behaviour? How have they influenced the school? What have they done to positively impact on their community? We even do them a ‘happiness Ofsted’ style report and give them a banner to drape over their school gate proclaiming ‘We are an OUTSTANDINGLY HAPPY SCHOOL’
Basically, young people are put in charge of their own wellbeing and then tasked with teaching the world to be a better place. It’s a proper counter-intuitive solution that changes the culture of the school from inside-out.
You’d be crazy not to.
Dr Andy Cope, happiness expert and positive psychologist and wellbeing trainer in schools – https://www.artofbrilliance.co.uk/training/education/
