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January 22, 2014
More than half of all middle and high school students believe that, unless they achieve good grades at school, they will be branded failures. And almost as many believe that their schools care more about grades than they do about students themselves, according to a new survey of 2,000 young people. The charity YoungMinds, which campaigns to improve the mental health of young people, polled 2,000 people between the ages of 11 and 25.
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More than half of all middle and high school students believe that,
unless they achieve good grades at school, they will be branded
failures.
And almost as many believe that their schools care more about grades
than they do about students themselves, according to a new survey of
2,000 young people.
The charity YoungMinds, which campaigns to improve the mental health
of young people, polled 2,000 people between the ages of 11 and 25.
When asked who they would talk to if they were feeling stressed or
worried, only one in five of the respondents said that they would
approach a teacher or a school counselor.
And a third of those surveyed said that they would not talk to
anyone at all. For those teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17, this
figure rose to two-fifths.
While 48.9 percent of those surveyed felt that the grades they
achieved – or failed to achieve – were more important to their schools
than they were, many also believed that there was no-one for them to
turn to with these concerns.
Lucie Russell, YoungMinds’ director of campaigns and media, said:
“Young people experience a continuous onslaught of stress at school –
bullying, sexual pressures and bleak employment prospects. When this
becomes too much for them, they don’t know where to turn for help. We
are sitting on a mental health time bomb.”
The charity is launching a new campaign, YoungMinds Vs, which aims
to secure emotional support for teenagers. This campaign calls for
discussion of emotional health to become an integral part of the school
curriculum.
In particular, it wants schools to provide greater support, –
including access to counseling services – for stressed or depressed
teenagers. And it would like personal, social and health education
lessons to be given increased prominence in the timetable, and to be
taught by specialist teachers.
Mental-health support group Samaritans has echoed these
recommendations. This week, the organization said that it wants to see
teachers talk to students about how to cope with stress, and how to go
about seeking help for it.
“We would like to see more in the national curriculum around the
issues to do with emotional health,” a spokesman said.
