This Ipsos report on attitudes to education in Britain highlight the level of parental concern about children’s mental health and a desire for more action to support mental health and Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision in schools.
It found that just under half of parents of children in education worry about their child’s mental health. Overall, the British public think schools are performing well, although not across all areas. It also found that more provision for SEN and mental health tops the list of areas the public want the government to prioritise for schools in Britain.
Mental health of children was mentioned by 45% of parents. 1 in 3 worry about their child’s social life and friendships, and a similar proportion about their physical health.
Overall, more people think British Primary schools, Secondaries, Colleges and Universities are good quality than bad quality, with parents more positive than the public as a whole. For example, 49% of the British public (57% of parents) said the quality of primary schools in Britain is very or fairly good, compared with 13% who said it was bad (24% said it was neither good nor bad).
However, views are more mixed on how good a job British schools are doing across a range of more specific criteria. The public is most positive about pupil academic performance (39% said schools do a good job in this regard), but less positive about how good a job they do in addressing pupil’s mental health issues (27%) and staff wellbeing (24%). Again, parents were more positive in their assessments across all these criteria than were the public as a whole.