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It’s worse than Carillion: our outsourced schools are leaving parents frozen out

Aditya Chakrabortty

By Adity Chakrabortty

Primary schools are being turned over to academy trusts with no accountability, and against the wishes of those who know the children best

This is a story they don’t want you to know. Much of it had to be prised from the grip of officials in Whitehall and the local town hall. Yet it demands to be told, because it shows how democracy and accountability are being drained from our schools, and how a surreal battle now rages over who knows what’s best for a child: the parents and teachers, or remote officials and financiers.

The school in question is Waltham Holy Cross primary in Essex. Helping on a school run last week, I found an entire small world. It was the last day of term, and teachers joined hands to form a human arch. The bell rang and all those leaving to start secondary ran under their teachers’ arms. Parents whooped while staff hugged overwhelmed pupils. There was barely a dry eye in the playground.

More than a school, this is a community – yet officials judge it a failure.

Just days before last Christmas, when a classroom’s mind is normally on the nativity play, Ofsted inspectors dropped by. Three long months later, they damned Waltham Holy Cross as “inadequate”. In the Conservatives’ “all-out war” on mediocre education, that is all the excuse needed to take it off the local authority and turn it into an academy. A trust called Net Academies will soon turn it into a “model school”.

This version of events does not match the views held by any parent I’ve spoken to, nor does it fit the facts brought to light by numerous freedom of information requests. Reported today in a newspaper for the first time, those requests reveal how little say parents and teachers have over the future of their children and school once it is forced to become an academy. In 2016, the then chancellor George Osborne ordered all schools to make the same conversion. Public outrage forced the Tories to back off then, but next time this story could be about your child.

That Ofsted inspection prompted a furious letter from the headteacher and chair of governors, alleging that before the visit had even formally begun, the lead inspector told staff that “based on the previous year’s [SAT] results, our school would be inadequate … judgment had therefore been made from the very first instant”. The private complaint reports inspectors shouting at the head, and telling staff they wouldn’t move their car away from the electric gates because “I’m Ofsted, I can park wherever I want”. Even being told that a child with autism is in his safe space didn’t stop an inspector barging over, “sitting next to him and quizzing him on what he was doing”.

Ofsted tells me the allegations are “simply untrue”, and that “inspectors do not go into schools with a preconceived idea of what judgment the school will receive”. Yet last August, a high court judge attacked the department for believing its views “will always be unimpeachable”.

Ofsted’s draft report – which only emerged through freedom of information – is shot through with errors. The headteacher is given a new surname and the number of nursery classes somehow halved. When the report was finally published, with its “inadequate” ruling, many parents could not square it with the happy place they knew. “The day we were told, I took my daughter into nursery – and she skipped all the way,” remembers Jayshree Tailor. “Is that a failing school?”

True, Waltham Holy Cross had been through rocky times, but over the past few months it has got a new headteacher (“fabulous”, say parents) and some vim. This month’s SAT results for Year 6 show a remarkable double-digit improvement in reading, writing and maths.

Once absorbed by an academy, Waltham Holy Cross has no way of returning to local authority control. This is a form of outsourcing, but with even less control than a contract with Carillion.

Ignoring my other questions, Net Academies asked why I wanted to know about its top salaries. Public interest, I replied: you’re taking taxpayers’ money to run schools. Stories of lavish pay and expenses are rife in this industry. I received no reply.

Those leading the fight against this academisation aren’t politicians or unions, but parents. On being told in March their children’s school was going to be forcibly converted, the meeting exploded. A group of them began firing off freedom of information requests and peppering officials with awkward emails. They have become what one councillor from a neighbouring borough calls “the most dogged parents I have ever come across”.

For Shaunagh Roberts, it began when she first looked up Net Academies – and got a jolt. “I just sat there researching for days, wearing the same pair of pyjamas.”

She’s been told how Net Academies successfully runs four academies in Harlow, Essex. Two of Net’s seven academies in Warwickshire and Reading have been ranked “inadequate”, a third “requires improvement”. According to the latest Education Policy Institute report, Net Academy Trust is the sixth-worst primary school group in England, falling below even the collapsed Wakefield City Academies Trust.

Its board is stuffed with City folk: PFI lawyers, management consultants, accountants – but apparently no working teacher. Even as it drops three of its schools, the trust’s aim is to run 25 to 30 institutions. Waltham Holy Cross will be the latest notch. “My kids are my world – and this school is their world,” Roberts says. “Why should Net spoil that?”

Senior staff don’t want Net either. In April, headteacher Erica Barnett sent a heartfelt private letter to the regional schools commissioner at the Department for Education (Dfe), Sue Baldwin, who has ultimate say over her school’s fate. If it must be an academy, Barnett says, at least let it be run by a rival local trust, Vine, which also has an “incredibly strong community feel”. Come visit, she urges the education official: see what a special place we are. Baldwin doesn’t visit. She picks Net Academies. And we have no idea why – despite this being a taxpayer-funded public asset, parents have been given no full reasoning for the decision. Perhaps because there is no good reason. The DfE told me it was because Vine “did not have the same level of capacity” as Net, the group struggling with almost half its schools. Yet the head refers to Baldwin’s “concern” about Vine being a trust of church schools, which Waltham Holy Cross is not (neither Barnett nor Vine see this as a problem). But the letter contains another clue.

When the school got its Ofsted result months ago, Barnett writes, “the local authority told us that the director of education, Clare Kershaw, would want us only to go with [Net Academies]”. Essex county council’s Kershaw was also a trustee with the charity New Education Trust, out of which came the Net Academies. Both the council and the government assured me that the two were separate entities, and her interest had been properly declared. Net denies any conflict of interest. Yet the charity’s last set of accounts describes the academies as “a connected charity”, affording it “direct involvement in improving [school] standards”. Kershaw also appears on an official document for the academy trust.

Faced with potential conflict of interest in other areas, officials would have ensured they were seen to be a million miles away from the decision. What’s most striking about academies is that there appears to be no such pressure – perhaps in part because private meetings between officials and business people allows everything to happen.And the people who know most about what their kids need – the parents and teachers – are shut out.

Academisation laughs at the idea that Britain is a modern, transparent democracy. Under it, the needs of the child are trumped by the demands of rightwing ideology. And as Waltham Holy Cross is discovering, it tries to reduce parents and teachers to mere bystanders.

Battling that are mothers like Roberts and Tailor. Never the sort to go on marches, they are now activists. They’ve learned about freedom of information, and used it to unearth scandalously bad decisions. They’ve done it in spare minutes, with cracked smartphones and against official condescension. While trying to preserve their children’s school, they have received another education – and taught officials a few things. Watch these women, because I think they might win.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/30/outsourced-schools-parents-primary-academy-trusts

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English schools are broken. Only radical action will fix them

Melissa Benn

By Melissa Benn

From failed free schools to poor funding and inequality, education needs drastic reform to create a fairer model

Even for the sceptical, the suddenness and speed with which the academy schools project has fallen from public grace is remarkable. After years of uncritical acceptance of official claims that academies, and free schools, offer a near cast-iron guarantee of a better-quality education, particularly for poorer pupils, there is now widespread recognition of the drear reality: inadequate multi-academy trusts failing thousands of pupils, parents increasingly shut out of their children’s education, and academy executive heads creaming off excessive salaries – in some cases almost three times higher than the prime minister – from a system perilously squeezed of funds.

Crisis can be an overworked term in politics, and our schools are good examples of public institutions, subject to years of poor political decisions, that continue to do remarkable work. But along with the academy mess, we can add the following to the current charge sheet of what should be (along with the NHS) our finest public service: pressing problems with recruitment and retention of teachers; rocketing stress among young children and teenagers subject to stringent testing and tougher public exams; and the ongoing funding crisis.

For those who have been closely observing developments in education over the years, none of this comes as much of a surprise. The reckless damage of the coalition years was, after all, only an exaggerated version of cross-party policy during the previous two decades: central government control-freakery allied to the wilful destruction of local government and the parcelling out of schools to untested rich and powerful individuals and groups, including religious organisations. From early years to higher education, every sector of our system is now infected with the arid vocabulary of metrics and the empty lingo of the market.

So what now? It is clear that the Tories have run out of ideas, bar the expansion of grammars. This autumn, following widespread consultation, the Labour party will publish its eagerly awaited plans for a national education service, an idea that Jeremy Corbyn has made clear he would like to see form the centrepiece of any future Labour administration.

For the progressive left, then, this is an important but tricky moment that requires two distinct approaches, both of which befit a potential government-in-waiting and an avowedly radical party.

The first is a calm, collegial pragmatism: addressing the immediate problems of our system, from teacher workload to reform of school accountability, loosening the screws on university teaching and research, and properly funding the all-important early years.

Here, a little political inventiveness might not go amiss. Why not tot up the money spent on unnecessary, damaging reforms and announce that equivalent sums will now be redirected to areas where they are clearly needed? Billions have been spent on the academy transfer market, failed free schools, funding the shadowy regional schools commissioners, subsidising private education: in future, let’s use that kind of money to improve special-needs provision, build up adult and further education, or send teachers to regions where it is proving impossible to recruit and retain staff.

Stop the excessive testing of primary-age children and spend the money on steadier, less cliff-edge forms of assessment. Implement the Headteachers’ Roundtable proposal for a national baccalaureate, an initiative that would immediately broaden the educational experience of every secondary-age pupil, with minimal disruption. Time, too, to learn the lessons of our global neighbours and phase out selection, reform unfair school admissions, and bring education back into public hands. As Lucy Crehan shows in CleverLands, an absorbing study of top-performing school systems around the world, many of these – including Finland and Canada – do not select or even stream until 15 or 16, and education is provided by a mix of national and local government. The result is a stable public service, capable of far greater innovation than our own fragmented school market.

Expert organisations and individuals are already considering ways to unpick the semi-privatisation of our schools. These include: opening up currently unaccountable academy trusts to parents, staff and local communities; shifting contracts currently held with the secretary of state to local authorities; and designing a bespoke mechanism by which schools could rejoin the local education authority.

But there’s an even bigger job for the progressive left, and that is to kickstart an honest public debate about what’s really wrong with English education and how we might develop a better, fairer model. Such a conversation would have to break with the current cross-party consensus – in reality, a stubborn silence – on the relationship between selective and private schools and the often beleaguered state system. Let’s ditch, once and for all, the idea that the selective schools are an inspiring model for – rather than a major block to – high-quality public education, and start to talk seriously about how to create a common system.

As Alex Beard argues in his recent book Natural Born Learners: Our Incredible Capacity to Learn and How We Can Harness it, developments in everything from artificial intelligence to neuroscience seriously challenge once rigid ideas of ability and potential – excellence only for the few. He reports on a rainbow of experiments, from improbably fun-sounding Finnish maths lessons to Californian high schools deploying “open source” learning and teamwork, that are producing skilled, enthusiastic students and responsible, questioning citizens. Beard consistently identifies a highly trained, highly valued, autonomous teaching force – another area in which the English system has, with depressing predictability, gone into reverse, truncating teacher education and controlling teachers more tightly than badly behaved teens.

It doesn’t have to be this way. With generous investment, expert teachers and heads given room to breathe, a broad but stimulating curriculum, an accountability system that supports rather than punishes, we could move in a more engaging direction. Much of the ground work has already been laid, from early comprehensive reform to the dramatic improvements to London’s schools in the 00s, through to the recent conversion of large parts of the Tory party to the benefits of high-quality comprehensive schools.

Any future government committed to such an aim needs to engage the energies of the thousands of passionate young educators, first drawn in by the academy and free school movement, as well as the mass of weary professionals in their middle years. We don’t need silent corridors or an obsession with league tables to make clear that schools must always be places of order, collaboration, high expectations and constant encouragement – and vital hubs for local communities. I don’t underestimate what a shift in substance and tone these proposals represent for the Labour party. But as Beard suggests, quoting the genius of West Wing scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin, “We don’t need little changes; we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens.” Not a bad place to start when building a national education service for the 21st century.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/09/schools-broken-radical-action-education

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Dan Baron Cohen: ‘Arte, pedagogía y cultura’ (Video)

Documentos

Reino Unido / 12 de agosto de 2018 / Autor: Museo de Antioquia / Fuente: Vimeo

Dan Baron Cohen es un activista que fundamenta su trabajo artístico, educativo y cultural en la comunidad. Vive y trabaja en el estado amazónico de Pará (Brasil). Hizo estudios de pregrado y posgrado en la Universidad de Oxford.

Su presentación «Arte, pedagogía y cultura» muestra, a través de narrativas fotográficas, musicales y pedagógicas, la historia de cómo un núcleo de niños y adolecentes se transforman poco a poco, y por sí mismos, a través de la ‘alfabetización de pedagogías interculturales’.

Fuente: https://vimeo.com/31373740

ove/mahv

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Reino UNido: Según el Secretario de Educación las universidades de élite deben mejorar el acceso

Noticias

Damian Hinds dice que las principales instituciones gastarán £ 860 millones para apoyar a los desfavorecidos

Europa/ReinoUnido/TheGuardian

Las universidades de élite no tienen un sesgo instintivo en contra de los jóvenes desfavorecidos, pero deben hacer más para mejorar el acceso, dijo el secretario de educación del Reino Unido.

En su primer discurso importante sobre movilidad social, Damian Hinds dijo que había un «interés público muy legítimo» para garantizar que los intentos de alentar a los niños a asistir a las principales instituciones de educación superior lleguen «a lo más profundo del país» y a cada grupo.

Dijo que la universidad era clave para determinar el éxito futuro de los niños y sugirió que había «un progreso alentador» en la movilidad social debido al aumento en el número de niños provenientes de entornos desfavorecidos.

Damian Hinds
Pinterest
 Damian Hinds: ‘Creo que tenemos que ir más allá’. Fotografía: Sarah Lee para The Guardian

Pero Hinds dijo que era «inaceptable» que los solicitantes de 18 años de las áreas más favorecidas del país tuvieran casi cinco veces y media más probabilidades de ingresar a las universidades más selectivas que sus pares más desfavorecidos.

La Oficina de Estudiantes se ha pedido para identificar los mejores enfoques para lograr que los niños de diferentes orígenes en la universidad, incluyendo el más selectivo.

Hinds dijo que era necesario hacer más en las escuelas a la luz de los datos que muestran que las escuelas privadas son responsables del 7% de la población escolar, pero el 40% de las que acudieron a las universidades de Oxbridge en 2016-17.

Agregó que las escuelas privadas representan el 14% de los estudiantes de nivel A y el 25% de los estudiantes que obtienen tres o más calificaciones de A.

El ministro del gabinete luego resaltó una «expectativa y brecha de conocimiento», señalando a los padres de clase media alentando a sus hijos a elegir asignaturas «más difíciles» como matemáticas, historia y mandarín como un «dispositivo de señalización» para universidades y empleadores.

Hinds comentó durante un evento de Resolution Foundation en Londres, donde dijo que se esperaba que las universidades gastaran 860 millones de libras para «mejorar el acceso y el éxito de los estudiantes desfavorecidos», y agregó que era necesario gastarlo bien y que los desafíos enfrentados deben ser reconocidos.

«Las últimas estadísticas sobre destinos de estudiantes de sexto y universitarios muestran que los alumnos blancos desfavorecidos tienen menos probabilidades de estudiar en la educación superior el próximo año que los alumnos desfavorecidos de cualquier otro grupo étnico», dijo Hinds.

«Y a pesar de que los alumnos afrodescendientes en desventaja tienen casi el doble de probabilidades de ir a una universidad superior que los alumnos blancos desfavorecidos, ambos están igualmente subrepresentados en las universidades más selectivas, incluido el Grupo Russell «.

También destacó las variaciones regionales en Inglaterra, señalando que uno de cada cinco alumnos desfavorecidos de Londres va a una universidad de tercer tercio en comparación con uno de cada 17 del noreste.

Presionado más tarde por los periodistas, Hinds dijo: «¿Pienso que las universidades de élite son parciales contra los niños desfavorecidos? No, no creo que instintivamente lo sean; Creo que quieren que las personas puedan beneficiarse de lo que tienen que ofrecer.

«Pero creo que tenemos que ir más allá, necesitan ir más allá. Se está gastando una gran cantidad de dinero en estos programas de acceso y demás, y existe un interés público muy legítimo en asegurarse de que se extienda a lo más profundo del país y a todos los grupos que pueda «.

También se encargará un nuevo proyecto de Big Data, basado en el trabajo en los Estados Unidos, para analizar a los jóvenes de todo el Reino Unido y dónde terminarán en los próximos cinco o seis años, dijo el ministro. 

También abordó investigaciones que muestran habilidades de comunicación tales como poder hablar sobre eventos del pasado o del futuro que faltaban en el 28% de los niños de cuatro y cinco años, y se comprometió a reducir a la mitad el número de niños que comienzan la escuela sin la habilidades de lectura que necesitan para 2028.

Una cumbre educativa en la que participen empresas y organismos de radiodifusión este otoño ayudará a motivar a más padres a leer y aprender nuevas palabras con sus hijos.

Fuente: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/31/education-secretary-damian-hinds-elite-universities-access-disadvantaged

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Britain’s economics students are dangerously poorly educated

Phillip Inman

Por Phillip Inman

Universities that only train young people to be City analysts leave us unable to learn from the past or predict the future

Last year the chief economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, gave a fear-inducing speech that warned of Armageddon in the jobs market. Robots threatened 15 million UK jobs, he said.

This dystopian picture of busy machines and queues of jobless Britons was replaced this month by a rosier view from PwC, which made the opposite claim: robots and artificial intelligence could create as many jobs as they destroy, which happens to be around 7 million.

Then the University of Oxford said 35% of UK jobs could be automated, while a 2017 McKinsey report warned 5% of UK jobs were highly automatable. The MIT Technology Review has identified at least 18 different predictions about automation.

This article is not about robots, AI or even the debate raging over the impact of Brexit. It’s about the detachment from history and real life – stemming from a disastrously narrow education – that allows economists to make such claims, and the damage that does to public debate about important matters.

This month, the pressure group Rethinking Economics said Britain’s universities were failing to equip economics students with the skills that businesses and the government say they need. Following extensive interviews with employers, including organisations such as the Bank of England, it found that universities were producing “a cohort of economic practitioners who struggle to provide innovative ideas to overcome economic challenges or use economic tools on real-world problems”.

Moreover, the group said, “when political decisions are backed by economics reasoning, as they so often are, economists are unable to communicate ideas to the public, resulting in a large democratic deficit.”

You could easily level that criticism at the economists forecasting the impact of AI. What are people supposed to think when those who study the field come up with such wildly varying predictions? More importantly, what will politicians think they should do? Nothing, probably, given the confusion.

The Rethinking group is concerned that university departments only train, rather than educate, huge numbers of graduates for econometrics jobs across the banking, insurance and consulting sectors.

In our increasingly student-led system, these young people don’t want to mess around with history or modules on inequality. They are on a mission to make money for themselves in the private sector.

If they were diverted into discussions of economic history, they might find out we are about to repeat the mistakes of the past and trigger another financial crisis. Even more inhibiting, their course might show that higher inequality dampens workers’ incentives to increase productivity, and might prompt them to ask why young economists in the City are paid colossal amounts of money to analyse bond yields or forecast oil prices. Pay them less, share the money around, and productivity might improve. Failing that, let a robot do their job.

It is an improvement, albeit an incremental one, that brings back a bit of Marxism (though just a discussion of Karl’s labour-market theory). The developers of the programme also claim it has freed itself from neoliberal thinking, which judges markets to be self-adjusting and consumers and businesses to be operating with the same information. The world is full of asymmetric power and information relationships, and Core reflects this.

Nonetheless, Joe Earle, chief executive of the charity Economy, says Core puts a gloss on a course that still puts maths first and critical thinking second.

“When people demand a revolution, minor reforms often gain support because they can be framed in such a way that they appear to simultaneously address the concerns of the critics while maintaining the status quo. This is exactly what is happening in economics,” he says.

It seems it is still seen as radical to analyse the flows of money in the world as if much of it was stolen, and how that skews investors’ decisions. But it’s not radical: it’s a fact. Tax alleviation structures dominate company decisions, but are rarely debated by students. Some of the money will be drug money or gains from organised crime. But most of it will be money that avoided tax in the country where it was generated.

Such a discussion would give students the chance to hear varied perspectives, challenge assumptions, and explore how different values and goals can lead to different conclusions. It shows that the academics behind Core still have work to do.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/04/economics-students-dangerously-poorly-educated

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La educación sexual LGTB se impartirá en Inglaterra, incluso en las escuelas religiosas

Noticias

Europa/Inglaterra/Fuente: Oveja rosa

Todas las escuelas en Inglaterra, incluidas las religiosas, tendrán que impartir clases de educación sexual, y por primera vez, incluirán las relaciones LGTB, a partir del próximo curso. Es el primer cambio a la educación sexual en cualquier centro escolar del Reino Unido en 18 años.

Damien Hinds, el Secretario de Educación, declaró que las nuevas lecciones, que comenzarán en la escuela primaria, serán apropiadas para cada edad.

“Esto incluye el contenido LGTB como una característica importante en los puntos apropiados para la edad. Establece el contenido central, pero permite flexibilidad para los alumnos de las escuelas”.

El Departamento de Educación ha confirmado que la educación LGTB será ‘obligatoria’, sin exclusión para las escuelas de fe.

Esta es una gran victoria para los activistas LGTBI que luchan por las relaciones inclusivas LGTBI y la educación sexual en Inglaterra.

La presidenta del equipo de National Student Pride, Hatti Smart, declaró: “Es una noticia increíble escuchar que todas las escuelas en Inglaterra ahora enseñarán educación inclusiva sobre relaciones sexuales y relaciones LGTB, sin exclusión voluntaria”.

La Fundación Terrance Higgins, que ha estado haciendo campaña por una mejor educación sexual durante más de 30 años, también da la bienvenida a las noticias. Sin embargo, advierten que ahora necesitan ver esto en acción: “Esta actualización está atrasada desde hace mucho tiempo. Se produce en un momento en el que, en promedio, una persona de entre 15 y 24 años de edad recibe un diagnóstico de VIH todos los días en el Reino Unido. Los jóvenes también representan la mayor proporción de nuevos diagnósticos de ITS”, dice Ian Green, director ejecutivo de Terrence Higgins Trust.

“Todavía hay trabajo por hacer para garantizar que RSE sea adecuado y aprobado por todas las escuelas. Esto debe incluir escuelas independientes y de fe; haremos que el Gobierno rinda cuentas al respecto.

Las clases serán apropiadas para la edad, lo que significa que a los niños pequeños en edad escolar primaria solo se les enseñará sobre relaciones y amistades. Las lecciones de la escuela primaria discutirán la estructura de las familias y los tipos de relaciones que pueden encontrar.

En las escuelas secundarias, los adolescentes tendrán lecciones sobre los hechos sobre la ley, el sexo, la sexualidad, la salud sexual y la identidad de género”. Con la guía dejando claro que la orientación sexual y la identidad de género deben explorarse en un momento oportuno de una manera clara, sensible y respetuosa.

“Al enseñar sobre estos temas, se debe reconocer que los jóvenes pueden estar descubriendo o aceptando su orientación sexual o identidad de género. Debe haber la misma oportunidad de explorar las características de las relaciones homosexuales estables y sanas.

Aunque dice que las escuelas son libres de determinar cómo abordan el contenido específico de LGTB, el Departamento de Educación dice que es “integral en todos los programas de estudio”.

Fuente: http://ovejarosa.com/la-educacion-sexual-lgtb-se-impartira-inglaterra-incluso-las-escuelas-religiosas/

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Reino Unido: los profesores necesitan ayuda para abordar los problemas de salud mental de los alumnos

Noticias

Europa/Reino Unido/PrensaIE

Los sindicatos de docentes en el Reino Unido han enfatizado la necesidad de que el personal sea apoyado por profesionales de la salud calificados con el fin de abordar mejor los problemas de salud mental en los estudiantes.

Los sindicatos estaban respondiendo al lanzamiento de un programa gubernamental para capacitar a un «Campeón juvenil de primeros auxilios en salud mental» en todas las escuelas secundarias.

«Los maestros y los líderes escolares están profundamente preocupados por los problemas de salud mental que enfrentan los niños y jóvenes a quienes enseñan», dijo Chris Keates, Secretario General de la Asociación Nacional de Sindicatos de Maestros, Sindicato de Mujeres Maestras (NASUWT).

Reconociendo que el Gobierno tiene razón en preocuparse por la salud mental de los alumnos, dijo que este anuncio no abordaría el alcance de los problemas que enfrentan las escuelas. «Los maestros y los líderes escolares se toman su deber de cuidado con sus alumnos muy en serio, pero no pueden reemplazar a los profesionales de la salud calificados», agregó.

Una dificultad importante es que cuando se identifican problemas de salud mental en las escuelas, el acceso a profesionales calificados y externos y servicios de apoyo adecuados es, en el mejor de los casos, limitado y, en algunos casos, inexistente, debido a los recortes anuales que enfrentan. por estos servicios, dijo ella.

Si bien las sesiones de capacitación pueden ser útiles, «tienen el potencial de colocar otra carga y responsabilidad sobre los hombros de los maestros, que ya están luchando para hacer frente a cargas de trabajo excesivas e insostenibles».

Maestros ignorados

Keates encontró también «profundamente decepcionante» que, si bien se reconocen los problemas de salud mental a los que se enfrentan los niños y jóvenes, una vez más, se ha ignorado la amplia evidencia de los problemas de salud mental que enfrentan los propios docentes.

Instó al Gobierno a abordar los factores contribuyentes en las escuelas que perjudican la salud mental y el bienestar. Esto se suma a proporcionar a los alumnos y docentes por igual el acceso directo y fácilmente disponible a los servicios de salud mental, atendidos por personal calificado y capacitado profesionalmente.  

las estadísticas revelan verdades brutales

Entre las impactantes estadísticas reveladas por la encuesta de NASUWT de 2.000 maestros y líderes escolares realizada en marzo de 2017, el 98 por ciento de los docentes dijeron que habían tenido contacto con alumnos a los que considera que experimentan problemas de salud mental.

Además, el 83 por ciento dijo que su trabajo había tenido un impacto adverso en su bienestar, el 59 por ciento dijo que había tenido un impacto negativo en su salud mental, y el 52 por ciento dijo que había tenido un impacto perjudicial en su salud física.

NUT: Subfinanciación crónica

El Sindicato Nacional de Docentes (NUT) también comentó sobre las propuestas del Departamento de Salud y el Departamento de Educación de dar £ 200,000 fondos para ayudar a los maestros a comprender e identificar los problemas de salud mental en los niños de todas las escuelas secundarias de Inglaterra. «El gobierno debe ser real acerca de priorizar la inversión en salud mental pero, según sus propias cifras, esto asciende a £ 67 por cabeza», dijo Rosamund McNeil, jefa de educación en el NUT. Ella insistió en que los servicios de salud mental habían enfrentado «años de falta de fondos crónicos».

Añadió: «La identificación de los alumnos a través de las escuelas es un elemento clave, pero los jóvenes y los niños necesitan ayuda clínica especializada, cerca de donde viven y lo suficientemente rápido como para intervenir temprano. Muchos niños en cada cohorte tienen necesidades emocionales y de comportamiento que requieren apoyo de fuera de la escuela. «Los servicios de salud mental infantil y adolescente deben ampliarse para garantizar que las escuelas tengan los lugares apropiados y profesionales capacitados para referir a las familias, dijo McNeil.

Examen de estrés

Al observar que algunos niños citan el enfoque de la fábrica de exámenes como una de las razones por las que experimentan altos niveles de estrés, dijo que el gobierno debería revisar el papel de las pruebas de alto riesgo en relación con la salud mental y el bienestar de los niños. También debería escuchar atentamente las recomendaciones del reciente informe del Comité de Educación Selecta. Salud mental de los niños y los jóvenes: función de la investigación educativa.

McNeil también sugirió que los números de los puestos pastorales en las escuelas deberían aumentarse y que el plan de estudios debe incluir tiempo adecuado para el deporte, la actividad física y las asignaturas artísticas, ya que esto se vuelve cada vez más difícil con la crisis del financiamiento escolar.

Ella exigió que el Gobierno les otorgue a las escuelas los fondos, el currículo flexible y los niveles de personal que necesitan para apoyar las necesidades individuales de niños y jóvenes, así como para aumentar la inversión nacional en apoyo de salud mental local.

Fuente: https://ei-ie.org/en/detail/15225/uk-teachers-need-support-to-tackle-pupils%E2%80%99-mental-health-issues

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