English pupils’ absence from school is because of “design failure” in the education system, psychologists warn
Department for Education: being urged by psychologists to consider "design failure". Pic: Getty Images
Education system is damaging many young people's mental health, more than 300 clinical and educational psychologists tell the government.
England’s education system is damaging many young people’s mental health, more than 300 psychologists are warning in an open letter to the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson.
Children’s school experiences are a “key contributing factor” to rising levels of mental ill-health, with high-stakes testing, “inappropriate rigid behaviour policies” and curriculum reforms under the Conservatives among initiatives blamed by these professionals.
The psychologists add that some children are “experiencing school as psychologically unsafe,” and that some “whole families [are] traumatised by their experiences within the education system”.
Clinical and educational psychologists appear to have had little input into schools policymaking under the last government, with their position under this one as yet uncertain. The letter and accompanying petition, put together by the clinical psychologists Dr Hayley Smith and Dr Natasha Holder, are an attempt to give a higher profile to these perspectives, which the letter argues reflects the reality of impacts on children which they witness.
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By Warwick Mansell for EDUCATION UNCOVERED
Published: 10 July 2025
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Maths education policy is very clearly a huge driver of this. Forcing a large proportion of children to fail for an hour every day has truly horrific consequences on their mental health. Of course it wasn't investigated by the previous government. The fact that the crushing of the EYFS stage (and the mental health damages that causes) to ensure that most of our 9-year olds are two years ahead in maths compared with all other countries would have been a problem for Nick Gibb's claims about TIMSS results. And analysis of the reality of the consequences of his education policies' impact on the mental health of the large proportion of children who cannot cope at secondary school as a consequence of his 2014 KS3 curriculum (and can't afford tutors) might have led people to assess the volume of students who are dropping out of the bottom end of maths education (which is far beyond officially recorded absences and exclusions), which 'might' have compromised our PISA results.