Children became unhappier in the past decade, according to the annual Good Childhood report. The number of eight to 16-year-olds with mental health problems rose sharply. It wasn’t their parents’ fault: children were happier with their families, but their distress coincided with a school life relentlessly concentrated on exams. Meanwhile, art, music, drama, sport, and design and technology are vanishing – they are unaffordable in schools with cut budgets that knew they would be judged on that harsh English baccalaureate regime: English, maths, two sciences, history or geography and a language. Nothing else.
As 40% fewer took arts subjects, PE hours were also cut, while 215 school playing fields were sold off and fun was squeezed out of the curriculum. Half of secondary pupils failed the Ebacc, without alternative activities to shine in. Ofsted, as stern enforcer, helped cause a flight of headteachers intimidated by those one-word judgments: lose a “good” rating and you might lose your career.
