Pupil Mental Health, Well-being and Development

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for focusing her seemingly inexhaustible energies on this important topic. It is a complex topic that invites multiple approaches. I intend to focus narrowly on one area, and, given that intended focus, I must start by declaring my interests as noted in the register. Of particular relevance to this debate is my role as chair of an expert advisory panel convened by government to offer non-binding advice to the DCMS and DfE on the development of their plan for cultural education.

My own education was far from usual in that I entered professional training at the age of 11 as a student at the Royal Ballet School. I will always count myself fortunate to have been educated in a place where there was never any sense that art was an extra, a “nice to have”, or peripheral to the main purpose. Art and arts-based approaches were integrated throughout a broad-based education that would equip us with a set of skills as important in life as they are in dance: curiosity, courage, perseverance, confidence, teamwork, personal responsibility and a creative hinterland on which to draw. Over the years, my increasing awareness of just how effectively that arts-enriched education prepared me for life beyond the stage has inspired an ongoing quest to better understand the role of the arts, culture and creativity in personal and social development, educational attainment, and health and well-being.

It is a field of research that has blossomed over recent decades. In 2016, the AHRC published a landmark report, Understanding the Value of Arts & Culture, which analysed, among other things, how arts engagement contributes to community cohesion, civic engagement and educational attainment. Three years later, the World Health Organization published the largest report to date on the underlying evidence base for the contribution of arts and culture to health and well-being. Of particular relevance to this debate is that the report found strong evidence of a positive correlation between arts engagement and the social determinants of health, child development and healthy behaviours.

Alongside evidence that childhood engagement in arts activities can predict academic performance across the school years, the report’s authors also found that it promotes pro-social classroom and playground behaviour, enhances emotional competence and reduces bullying. The behavioural benefits are shown to extend to groups with diverse needs. Children from less advantaged backgrounds, those with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and those with physical or learning disabilities experienced reductions in anxiety, depression or aggression, with associated improvements in self-esteem, confidence, communication and personal empowerment. The authors also report a sizeable literature on the arts’ role in building social and community capital, fostering co-operation across different cultures, reducing prejudice, enhancing social consciousness and increasing civic behaviours such as voting and volunteering.

Dr Daisy Fancourt, one of the authors of the report, has worked forensically over many years to investigate the ways in which these outcomes occur: how the component elements of arts activities trigger psychological, physiological, social and behavioural responses that are themselves causally linked with positive health and well-being outcomes. In addressing the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has introduced today, it is worth considering each of these in turn.

Fancourt’s work points to how the aesthetic and emotional components of art provide opportunities for understanding and exploring emotions. They allow opportunities for emotional regulation and stress reduction, and all these are key to how we manage mental health. The cognitive stimulation in art supports learning and skills development, which is beneficial in itself but is also interrelated with mental illnesses such as depression. Group interactions through arts activities improve social capital and reduce prejudice and discrimination between different groups. The physicality of arts activities reduces sedentary behaviours, improving fitness, flexibility and bone health and linking to reductions in depression. This is what the research tells us.

Schools taking part in the Artsmark programme show us what this looks like in action. Artsmark offers schools a framework and support to embed creativity across the curriculum, addressing school improvement priorities, and 89% of Artsmark schools report improvements in pupils’ well-being and resilience. They point to positive impacts on mental health, enhanced intercultural understanding and stronger connections forged between staff, pupils, families and local communities. Schools also report improvements in punctuality, student engagement and attendance, underlining the important point noted earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, about creating environments that encourage children and their parents to engage with school.

Partnership working is key to success and, in the best-case scenarios, a network of commissioners, providers and agencies across education, culture, voluntary and faith sectors, as well as local authorities, work together to provide children with rich, culturally diverse and locally connected arts opportunities. I urge the Minister to follow the progress of Culture Start, a three-year city-based cross-sector partnership launching this year in Sunderland, which will span social housing and the voluntary, cultural and youth sectors, as well as education, to provide young people with cultural experiences that help to mitigate some of the impacts of growing up in poverty.

Research and lived experience demonstrate how arts activities and experiences can support schools in caring for the mental health and well-being of children and in fostering family and community connections. The evidence is clear, the outcomes evident. There are, of course, other routes for children to access arts activities, at home and in the community, but if we want all children to enjoy the developmental, educational and social benefits associated with arts engagement, school—a universal experience—is surely the best route to ensuring universal access.

I know that, in responding, the Minister will reiterate her commitment to ensuring that all children have access to these opportunities through education. I will finish by welcoming that commitment in advance.