Ofsted, Secondary Assessment and Children's Mental Health

This morning's Education and Equalities Committee began with a discussion of children's mental health. In response to the DfE proposals on mental health 'first aid' training in schools, the NUT has used 'In Conversation' to discuss this with secondary school teachers. 88% of teachers surveyed thought that the number of students with complex mental health problems was increasing , whilst 67% didn't feel the pastoral support for students was sufficient.

A number of teachers reported positive approaches in their school towards addressing children's mental health and the committee agreed to seek to publicise some of these, whilst not ignoring the causes of increasing mental health problems amongst children and the inadequacy of funding for specialist services to address this.

Bacc for the Future?

Nicky Morgan is attempting to breath new life into Michael Gove's plan to further narrow the secondary curriculum through the introduction of an English Baccalaureate. The Incorporated Society of Musicians has begun a campaign to prevent the exclusion of arts subjects from the new qualification and this has already drawn wide support.

This links with the broad Bacc for the Future campaign which defeated earlier proposals and has been revived. Members are encouraged to sign up to support this campaign here.