As a headmaster, I see children suffering mental health issues unlike anything before. This new shutdown of schools is disastrous

I am in despair. As schools across the UK close again, our children are being placed in real danger. They will end up being this lockdown’s ‘collateral damage.’

Children no longer matter.  In 31 years of teaching, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so despondent and so concerned at the same time.  

Our world is in the grip of a pandemic and governments across the globe have poured billions of pounds into fighting it and in trying to support the lockdown strategy. Makes me wonder why we couldn’t tackle other issues globally and so ferociously in terms of spend. What about the Climate Emergency? The obesity pandemic? The fact that in 2021 we still have people living on the street; that it takes an international footballer, Marcus Rashford, to shame the British Government into feeding children during school holidays.  

And what does that also tell us about the current levels of poverty in the UK? What about the 1,500 people that die every day in the UK from the big three: heart disease, strokes and cancer-related illnesses? Why haven’t we taken these issues as seriously as we have a virus which is likely to end up with a mortality rate of well below one percent, and which, according to the Office for National Statistics, has an average age of death in the UK of 83. Meanwhile, in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, men have a life expectancy of 71.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist; I’m not some radical on the fringes of a fringe. I’m just a teacher and this is what I see:

In the last three months, in my school and in schools like it, I am witnessing mental health issues unlike anything I’ve seen in my career. This is not me trying to be dramatic or to overplay what lockdown actually does to children. I am seeing children being diagnosed with clinical depression, increasing rates of self-harm (even in Scotland, where we already had the highest rate of self-harm in 15-year-old girls anywhere in the world, bar one), suicidal ideation and, something I haven’t seen for at least 20 years, a resurgence of eating disorders. 

Add to this those students who are displaying worrying levels of stress and anxiety; the same students that describe online learning as stress-inducing. Anyone that has been involved in a Zoom meeting knows how stressful it can be and yet the great solution to our educational recovery is online learning. Well, I’m an educator and I think, at best, it’s a horribly poor substitute for in-school learning.

Right throughout this pandemic, the needs of our children seem to be at the bottom of every Government’s priority list. The cynic in me might suggest that it is because they can’t vote. Fortunately, I’m not cynical. To me, it’s actually just as worrying, though, to suggest that kids don’t really matter that much if they are not dying.

At the moment, there seems to be no alternative voice; no political party willing to stand up for children’s plight, no media criticism; merely more nodding in agreement that lockdown is the only solution. 

Well, just remember in our attempts to suppress a virus and ‘to save the NHS’ that the price we pay is the downward spiral in the mental wellbeing of our children and a legacy of under-achievement as a result. 

Last summer, individual children were the lowest priority in Government as seen in the examination results fiasco. As of  January 2, there is not one single hospital bed available for any young person suffering from mental health issues anywhere in Scotland. The current waiting time for a mental health appointment with CAMHS in the Lothians is six months. Utterly disgraceful.

Children need to be with their friends. They need to play. They need to develop their social and academic skills. How dare we have created an environment where a five-year-old can say, ‘I can’t play with Freddy because he’s not part of my bubble.’ It is the stuff of nonsense and it is our children who will end up being this lockdown’s ‘collateral damage.’

Schools need to be OPEN and they need to open NOW.

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