In an average week, at least four schoolchildren, some as young as ten years old, kill themselves in the UK.
A 2021 paper in the British Journal of Psychiatry suggested that 7% of children (a total of over 52,000) have attempted suicide by the age of 17, while the number of 15 to 19-year olds dying by suicide each year has more than doubled since 2010. The likelihood is that these appalling statistics, which reveal a largely hidden national scandal, will get worse as the destructive consequences of Covid and the cost of living crisis impact our children’s lives.
Although the biggest danger to children, statistically, is themselves, as suicide is their most likely cause of death, no one has told them – and their parents most probably don’t know it either. At present, although since 2020 teaching about mental health and emotional wellbeing has been a statutory requirement of the PSHE (now RSHE) curriculum in our schools, there is no such obligation for teachers to focus on suicide prevention. Such is the stigma and ignorance around suicide, that teachers of RSHE can hardly be blamed for focusing on the more positive angle of improving their pupils’ wellbeing rather than dwelling on the horrific reality of child suicide, even if the purpose of doing so is prevention.
Teachers are probably aware that, according to recent research and their own experiences, in a class of 30 pupils of any age between 6 and 16, there will be at least 6 children in that class with a probable mental health disorder, most likely involving self-harm of some kind. They may well consider that even mentioning suicide may put ideas into the heads of the vulnerable young people they are teaching. In fact, all the research contradicts this myth. Indeed, discussing suicide in an age-appropriate fashion is something that needs to be encouraged in our schools.
It is an unpalatable reality, along with drug and alcohol abuse, STDs, racism and homophobia. Those subjects are commonly found on schools’ RSHE curriculum, yet none are as imminently crucial to the lives of the pupils as suicide prevention. Hence it seems to be a no-brainer that this critical topic should be added on, compulsorily, to the Health Education unit of every school’s RSHE curriculum.