Your article (Teachers ‘buckling under strain’ of pupils’ mental health crisis, 11 March) highlights the serious impact that the pandemic is having on the mental wellbeing of children and school staff.
We’ve long campaigned for government-funded counselling support in every secondary school, academy and further education college in England, provided by qualified staff. The need has never been more acute than now to support young people and alleviate the growing strain on school staff. Schools can’t do this alone.
We’re seeing an increase in demand for services as young people struggle to come to terms with how their lives have been transformed by the pandemic – and that demand is only going to rise.
We know that counselling can have a transformative effect on young people’s lives and that early, accessible help is key. Indeed, research indicates that school counselling alleviates psychological distress and improves self-esteem. This is crucial to help with the range of emotional challenges that children and young people are facing.
There is a trained counselling and psychotherapy workforce that can meet the demand if funding was secured for universal access in all schools and colleges. We need to act now to prevent overwhelming pressure on mental health services in years to come.
Dr Hadyn Williams
Chief executive, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
• Your article about the unwise spending of £5bn on Covid tutoring (National tutoring scheme failing disadvantaged pupils, say MPs, 10 March) is cause for great anger and concern, but not surprise. The Department for Education’s strategy of appointing a large service provider to design and administer the scheme was wrong, since it would inevitably involve costly layers of administration for schools to access funding and deliver tuition.
Instead, funding should have gone directly to schools based on the numbers of disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs. Schools are not only in the best position to identify pupils who need tuition the most, but also to provide tutors via their own networks. Schools could employ recently retired teachers, offer extra hours to part-time staff or call on supply staff. There are already systems in place for financial accountability in schools, so they would be able to provide evidence that extra funding was being spent on pupils in need.
Given the scathing report from the education select committee, the current strategy should be ditched in favour of direct funding to schools. The government needs to respect the professionalism, dedication and judgment of teachers, and change its strategy on tutoring.
Pauline Chater
Morchard Bishop, Devon
• Many years ago, in my job as a teacher educator, I came across an inner-city primary school in Liverpool where each day started with an art class. When I asked the headteacher why he did this, he replied: “Because it is calming and civilising.” The school performed well in the league tables.
The government’s emphasis on catching up on reading, writing and arithmetic in primary schools does not make for a cohesive curriculum. It also appears that referred pupils with particular needs often get help where art is used as a therapy. Does it not make sense to integrate the cure into the cause?
Peter Moore
Liverpool
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