Recommendation 6

HM Government Acknowledged

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people remains a priority for the Government, both in responding to the current pressures felt by the pandemic and in the longer term. The Government remains committed to our green paper delivery programme, which includes introducing new Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) linked to schools and colleges, incentivising all schools and colleges to identify and train a senior mental health lead, and testing approaches to faster access to specialist NHS mental health support. MHSTs are intended to provide early intervention on mild to moderate issues, as well as helping staff within a school or college setting to provide a ‘whole school approach’ to mental health and wellbeing. There are now over 280 MHSTs set up or in training, which will deliver the NHS Long Term Plan commitment to reach 20 – 25% of pupils in England a year early in 2022. In March 2021, we announced a £79million to boost children and young people’s mental health support, which will increase the number of MHSTs in schools and colleges to cover around 35% of pupils in England by 2023. We have also announced £9.5 million funding for the 2021/22 academic year, for up to 7,800 schools and colleges in England to train a senior mental health lead, as part of our commitment to offer this to all state schools and colleges by 2025. The training will equip senior mental health leads with the knowledge and skills to introduce or develop their setting’s approach to mental health and wellbeing and to implement effective processes for ensuring pupils and students with mental health problems receive appropriate support. Pupils will have been affected by the pandemic in different ways, and will require specific pastoral support approaches to stay engaged in education and to stop problems from escalating. Public Health England’s ‘COVID-19 mental health and wellbeing surveillance’ report sets out that during the pandemic, some disadvantaged young people and children, such as children in care or those who are disadvantaged financially, have reported poorer mental health and wellbeing including anxiety and loneliness. Parents/carers from households with lower annual incomes reported their children having higher levels of symptoms of behavioural, emotional and attentional difficulties than those with higher annual income throughout the pandemic. Evidence from across the pandemic also indicates that boys and girls have had different mental health and wellbeing challenges. Parents/carers of school aged children have reported higher symptoms of behavioural and attentional difficulties for boys, whilst girls had higher levels of emotional difficulties. It is important, however, to note these gender differences were fairly typical pre-pandemic. Pupils will also have missed on out on seeing their friends and opportunities to take part in enrichment activities. These can play a key part not only in supporting pupil wellbeing, but in preparing them for the opportunities, responsibilities, and experiences of later life through developing resilience, team-work and independence. It is critical that barriers to participation in enrichment activities are minimised so that all pupils are able to access them, including the school’s most disadvantaged pupils. With this in mind, we have: • increased efforts to improve access to extra-curricular activities, which we know contribute to the wellbeing of pupils. This includes investing up to £220m in our Holiday Activities and Food programme, which provides children the opportunity to engage in activities aimed at supporting resilience, character, and wellbeing. This holiday club provision is for children and young people who receive benefits-related free school meals; • made £200m available to schools to run summer schools, giving secondary pupils access to enrichment activities that they have missed out on over the pandemic, such as games, music, drama, and sports; • announced a one-off recovery premium for the 2021/22 academic year worth over £300m that will build on the Pupil Premium to support the most disadvantaged pupils. Like the Pupil Premium, schools can spend the recovery premium on a wider cohort of pupils than those who attract the funding and can use it to tackle non-academic barriers to success in school, such as attendance, behaviour and social and emotional support; • extended our commitment to the £320m primary PE and Sport Premium into the 2021/22 academic year; • announced that we will be extending access to the Duke of Edinburgh Award for 291 schools in areas of high disadvantage. The Government has also committed to an ambitious, long-term education recovery plan and the next stage will include a review of the evidence on time spent in school and 16-19 education and the impact this could have on helping children and young people to catch up. The findings of the review will inform the Spending Review later in the year. We will continue to work with government d