Baroness Spielman: Schools too focused on mental health, should prioritise academics, says former Ofsted chief

Baroness Spielman, who led the schools watchdog from 2017 to 2023, says that schools have become “therapeutic institutions” with too much emphasis on mental health and not enough on academics. She argues that encouraging children to identify negative emotions from as young as three is a normal part of childhood, and that schools would benefit from a stronger focus on learning and achievement in the classroom.

The former Ofsted chief told the Sunday Times that if schools reconceived themselves as places to find things to be wrong with children, they would likely uncover problems and risk feeding a “negative spiral” in which more wellbeing support reinforces the idea that a child cannot cope without help. “The danger is you get into a downward spiral where the more of that kind of [mental health] support you give to a child, the more you reinforce the idea that they can't cope without it.”

NHS data for 2023 suggested almost a quarter (23.3%) of children had a probable mental disorder, such as anxiety or depression, up from 19% the year prior. Spielman noted that the absences linked to mental health can have long-term consequences, with frequent absentees earning about £10,000 a year less than their peers by age 28. The comments come as ministers push to tighten how mental health is addressed in schools amid concerns about worklessness among young people.

Under government plans, all pupils will have access to mental health support in school by the end of the decade, with six in ten pupils expected to have access to a mental health support team by March 2026. A separate report has found a rising number of teenagers and young adults claiming sickness benefits for mental health problems, fueling concerns that teaching about mental health is contributing to an over-medicalised view of everyday life. New guidance from the Department for Education directs that pupils be taught that worrying and feeling down are normal, can affect everyone at different times, and are not in themselves a sign of a mental-health condition. It adds that teachers should help students see these feelings as manageable rather than as indicators of illness.

The changes form part of updated guidance on teaching relationships, sex and health education (RHSE). Some provisions around mental health had been carried over from a draft drawn up by the previous Conservative government, but Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has toughened them amid concerns about rising worklessness among young people. In particular, she included a requirement that schools must not teach about mental health in a way that encourages self-diagnosis of mental conditions. Tomorrow the Covid-19 inquiry will begin hearing evidence about the pandemic’s impact on children and young people. Spielman was a vocal critic of school lockdowns in 2020, warning at the time that they did “a lot worse” to many children than simply delaying their education. She said: “Obviously first and foremost it is around the education that they are missing, but so much also around the personal development and their physical fitness which of course flows through into mental health, but physical health matters as well.” She added that ongoing findings show many children have regressed without the steady reinforcement provided by school structures and systems.