Rishi Sunak is not doing enough to help a generation of children still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, the Children’s Commissioner warns today.
Dame Rachel de Souza says they “aren’t recovering as they should” as we reveal worrying figures that show one in four children aged eight to 17 are plagued by loneliness. It comes amid a growing mental health crisis among England’s schoolchildren and persistent absence rates that suggest the impact of Covid on them has been underestimated, she said.
Now Dame Rachel is calling for the PM to come to their rescue by bringing in a scheme similar to his Eat Out to Help Out initiative to kick-start hospitality after lockdown. She believes her Play Out To Help Out idea would “improve children’s mental health”. She added: “We need them playing and interacting with their peers and getting their lives back to normal.”
Last year her office estimated 1.8 million children in England were regularly missing school. And a study in March of nearly 3,600 eight to 17-year-olds in England, carried out for the Commissioner, found a quarter often felt lonely with fewer than half saying they were hardly ever lonely. Children with a social worker or special education needs were more likely to feel isolated – and less than half of teenagers felt optimistic about their future.
Dame Rachel spoke to us after talking to pupils during a visit to a school in Buckinghamshire. She believes longer school days to fit in sports and arts, after-school activities and youth clubs could help get absent pupils engaged again.
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Children's Commissioner Rachel de Souza speaks to the Sunday Mirror about the lingering impact of Covid on children (Tim Merry/Mirror)She said: “It’s kind of My Play Out to Help Out. I would be saying to the PM ‘you need to fund kids’ wellbeing and [get them] back to school now. “And you need to do it by supporting youth workers, by supporting longer days, making sure the sports and activities are there, and ensuring that kids can actually afford their bus fare to come to school. Once they’re here – because they are engaging and have their friendship groups – they can improve their mental health.”
The children’s tsar described meeting a Year 11 football captain in Bolton earlier this year whose life had fallen apart during the pandemic. She said: “He should have been your golden boy, if you like, but he said, ‘My world collapsed with Covid. I didn’t see my friends, I didn’t know what was happening’. I heard that right around the country. I had hoped, with the survey, that things would have been better but they are not.
“It is still a tale of unhappiness and anxiety.” A report by her office this week found around 20,000 pupils finishing their GCSEs last summer had missed half or more of their classes in one of their final two years of school. Only one in 20 children who skipped half their lessons in both Year 10 and Year 11 achieved at least five GCSEs, including English and maths.
Pupils at Bourne End Academy, Bucks, this week told Dame Rachel of their worries about social media, mental health and money. All 10 children in one focus group said they had heard their parents speak about the cost of living crisis, while some said classmates were missing school due to the cost of the bus fare.
Dame Rachel said: “Children are also worried about the cost of uniforms, the cost of food. You wouldn’t have heard that before lockdown. Every child we spoke to said their family was worried about money. So they are absorbing it.
Children's Commissioner Rachel de Souza visits the Bourne End Academy in Buckinghamshire to speak to the students (Tim Merry/Mirror)“We need to be making sure kids can get back to school and that there are no financial barriers to them returning. No one should miss school because of a bus fare or the cost of a uniform.” Now Dame Rachel wants the PM to put the attendance crisis at the heart of next week’s King’s Speech. “These kids were locked down, their lives and -education disrupted,” she said.
“We should have them at the heart of coming back from lockdown. They are not recovering as they should. I want to see children at the heart of the King’s Speech and at the heart of the next PM’s work as well.”
Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Labour’s plans to broaden the school curriculum will give more children access to music, drama and sport to give them more time to learn and play together. And our plans for mental health counsellors in every secondary school, mental health hubs in every community and breakfast clubs for every primary pupil will start to tackle the root causes of absence and poor mental health.”
Lib Dem Education spokesperson Munira Wilson said: "These findings are deeply troubling and should act as a wake up call for Ministers. Parents are crying out for more support for children suffering with mental health issues. It's clear there is a direct link to grades and attendance so the government has no excuse for sitting on their hands. It's infuriating to see Ministers bury their heads in the sand on this issue."
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “In response to rising demand created by the pandemic, we invested £79 million extra in 2021/22 to significantly expand children’s mental health services. We’re also investing an additional £2.3 billion a year in NHS mental health services by March 2024, so an additional 345,000 children and young people will be able to access NHS-funded mental health support quicker. To expand access to early mental health support, we are extending coverage of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to at least 50% of pupils in England by the end of March 2025.”
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