Schools told to run parenting classes and measure happiness

 By John Bingham, Social affairs Editor

They are also being advised that they should “systematically measure” children’s happiness levels to stop them going off the rails. 

And, as well as carrying out health and safety risk assessments for school trips and other activities they should also assess how extra curricular activities affect children’s “emotional well-being”. 

The instructions are contained in a raft of new public health advice for councils issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the body which decides which drugs the NHS should prescribe. 

Nice has been issuing wide-ranging guidance to local authorities since they took over new responsibilities for maintaining public health earlier this year. 

The latest batch of guidance ranges from practical advice to local authorities on minimising the spread of tuberculosis among homeless people to a section making a financial case for funding antismoking campaigns. 

But it also includes a 14-page briefing for councils on improving the “social and emotional well-being” of children and young people with instructions for midwives, health visitors and schools. 

The paper advises anyone working with children to be on the lookout for evidence they are living in squalor, that their parents have mental health problems or that they are abusing drugs or alcohol. 

It argues that stepping in early can prevent children repeating the problems of their parents and says that “happy and confident” children are less likely to go on to have mental health or behavioural problems in later life. 

“Negative parenting and poor quality family or school relationships place children at risk of poor mental health,” it explains. 

Then, offering advice to secondary schools, it continued: “Schools should systematically measure and assess young people’s social and emotional well-being. 

“They should use the outcomes to plan activities and evaluate their impact.” 

It adds: “Schools should reinforce young people’s learning from the curriculum, by helping parents and carers develop their parenting skills. 

“This may involve providing information or offering small, group-based programmes run by appropriately trained health or education practitioners.” 

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said it was “ludicrous” to ask teachers to measure happiness or teach parents as well as pupils. 

“I have to wonder how we have survived from the Stone Age without all of this guidance from Nice,” he said. 

“The nanny state is growing and needs have its powers reduced, schools have got more than enough to do to teach their children. 

“If you teach people to read and write and play sport and music, that’s what makes them happy – what makes people unhappy is being deskilled, too many schools are focusing on social care. 

“Teachers are fed up to the back teeth with all of this – it is non-stop. All the time they are being asked to solve all the problems of society rather than focusing on solving the thing they good at solving: ignorance.” 

A spokeswoman for the Depatrment for Education said: "The decision on whether to run these classes, or any activities for families, is a matter for schools and councils.”