Morning thoughts: The UK’s position on children’s wellbeing is “dreadful”. Why is the data on this receiving so little media attention?

Government also seems uninterested in investigating UK's worsening position in international wellbeing league tables. But isn't their children's happiness top of many parents' priorities?

Why is the dire position of the UK on children’s wellbeing receiving so little attention in the mainstream media?

The question was posed earlier this week, during a House of Lords session of the schools bill. Or, to give it its not-often-used full name, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Lord O’Donnell, the cross-bench peer who for six years was the UK’s most senior civil servant, had made the point that the country’s position, in an international league table of the life satisfaction of 15-year-olds, was “dreadful,” and something about which “we should be ashamed”.

The UK placed 37^th out of 38 OECD countries on this measure, which was based on a question answered by pupils as part of the Programme in International Student Assessment (PISA) study.

Earlier this year, I also revealed how the number of pupils in England saying they dislike school had doubled between 2015 and 2023, with nearly half of our 14-year-olds sadly disagreeing with the statement “I like being in school”.

As evidenced by that data within the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), the figure of 48 per cent of our 14-year-olds disliking school compared to an international average of 20 per cent.

However, despite much coverage given to in some cases quite modest improvements in international test results over the period of the Conservative government, the media – and, arguably, the government - seems to show little interest in what seems increasingly like the flip side of that record, as evidenced particularly in the case of TIMSS above  by dramatic changes in pupil satisfaction metrics.

During the debate on Tuesday, a succession of peers, from a variety of parties, backed a proposal which Lord O’Donnell is fronting, calling for a national system to measure the wellbeing of pupils in schools.

Yet this was rejected by the government, partly on the grounds of cost, with the minister, Baroness Smith of Malvern, stating: “We do not agree that a centrally administered survey, costing millions of pounds a year over this spending review, is necessarily the right way forward.”

Yet Lord O’Donnell, who was once Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, had suggested that taking young people’s wellbeing more seriously could save the country billions, via less outlay having to support people as they grew up.

As a parent, this is depressing and baffling . Schools are monitored from multiple angles in terms of their exam results. Parents surely value happiness at least alongside grades. And yet, with the situation on mental health seemingly so dire, there seems little interest even in investigating.

I also think Labour is missing a trick, here. The figures above paint a very different picture about the record of its predecessors in education than the Conservatives and their allies want to present. The government could do more to truly interrogate that record, to the benefit, I think, of many children. It is a puzzle that it seems reluctant to do so.