Happiness of UK Schoolchildren

A response to :

http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/oct/28/happiness-uk-schoolchildren-eight-charts

Firstly, happiness. The fact that they interviewed 7-14 year olds probably helped with these results, because there's far less pressure on you at this age. Admittedly SATs now at the age of 10 or 11 are causing more unhappiness, but that still leaves 3 years with very little to worry about (for most kids). Having just started A-levels, I would say that it was more likely to be 50.3% who were unhappy, and 5.5% who were happy at the older years.

This could be fixed fairly easily too. Reduce the pressure on students by removing the onus on exams - exactly the opposite of the current reforms! Yes, having a ton of homework throughout the year due to coursework isn't exactly stress-free....but having the same amount as well as a three month period where exams are all you can think about isn't healthy. Furthermore, pastoral care could be improved, at all ages. When more and more children, at younger and younger ages, are experiencing struggles with anxiety/depression/eating disorders, this is a problem that needs to be tackled. Because otherwise these figures will be completely different.

Next, there's the results on sleep. One thing I liked about this data was that it didn't ask how many hours of sleep they got, but how happy they were with it. For example, I can function well on 6 hours of sleep or less, and I'm usually pretty happy with that because it means I get to spend more time on the internet. My friend, however, needs about 9 otherwise there is no way she's functioning!

2/3 of children said they were thought they were healthy or very healthy, which is of course fantastic. However, 8% felt that their sleep was unhealthy or very unhealthy. The article suggests that this could be due to screen time, which is understandable. However, as you start to approach the teenage years (such as the 13 and 14 year olds in this survey), you need more sleep. But you get more homework. Another friend has had a detention recently, and when asked to write about what she could do to turn up on time, she suggested not completing her homework so that she could sleep more and get up earlier. Is this the future we want?

Sadly, the data on bullying showed that almost 50% of the respondents had been bullied face to face. On the other hand, the internet generation had success as cyberbullying was much less common. To me, this suggests that we've focused on that enough, and need to go back to ways to deal with it - and increase the number of boys who report incidents.

The next set of data was something which is particularly relevant to me at the moment - the future. I'm in year 12 and so I'm having to start to think of university, and it's terrifying because I don't know what to do. I know that I need to choose something that I enjoy, but also that I need to be able to get  a job from it - something 33% of 7-14 year olds surveyed also considered. This means that there are potentially seven year olds, with another eleven years of education to go, who have been forced to consider the future because of the current economic climate. Personally when I see that data, my heart breaks for them. I believe that at that age you should be enjoying yourself - it's certainly something I wish I had done more.

By the age of 13, 64% don't feel that what they learn in school is useful. Again, this will have implications for the future. For some people, they need to be able to see the real-world application to grasp the concept (especially for maths). Whilst the reforms have addressed this, for example in the core maths qualification, there is much more we could do. Careers training, how to write a CV, how to manage money....there's so much I haven't been taught that I need to know. For kids to be interested, information has to be relevant. And it clearly isn't.

Something else in this survey made me incredibly sad - children feel less and less confident in themselves and in their appearances, and at increasingly younger ages. However, I was happy to see that 63% of girls take a selfie every day. Whilst many find selfies arrogant or self-centred, to me this demonstrates that girls are beginning to grow again in self-confidence. So don't selfie-shame, people!

The relationship data, I must admit, had no particular impact on me. I don't find it shocking that 6% had had a relationship at 5 or below, because when you're young, your concept of that is totally different. In fact, it makes a nice change from when I was that age and girls and boys didn't want to touch each other because they'd get "boy germs" or "girl germs". However, I was sad that boys are more likely to go into a relationship to look cool - no matter how serious these relationships are, they should be making decisions that suit them, not others. If they'll do this now, does that mean that later they're more likely to be pressured into sex or drugs or other things they might not want to do?

And the data ended with information about worries, something else I feel strongly about. Almost 30% have no worries, which is great, but why isn't this number higher? 11.5%  worried about not having a home, 13% about jobs and 26% about not having enough money. At that age (and even at my age), these aren't things you should have to worry about. Kids should be enjoying their lives, and as a country maybe we're doing something wrong if they're not.

Honestly I have no idea what I've just written, and what my purpose was. Although actually, I do know my purpose - to gain an octant badge for guiding and to have something for university applications, because I too am worried about my future.