Mindfulness in Schools

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered mindfulness in schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray. Hon. and right hon. Members present today will no doubt be aware of the tragic case of the 16-year-old schoolgirl, Brianna Ghey, who was murdered in my constituency a year ago this coming Sunday. What they may be less aware of, and this is something I hope to remedy today, is the campaign that was set up in the wake of one of Warrington’s darkest days by her mother, Esther Ghey. The Peace in Mind campaign, working with the Warrington Guardian and with the support of our community, has fundraised over £50,000 since September to bring mindfulness into schools in Warrington. Today, our ask is that the Government commit to bringing that into all schools.

That ask sits within the wider national context of a mental health crisis facing our young people, and an NHS ill-equipped to meet the demand. Alongside that, schools are seeing a crisis in recruitment and retention, with a record number of teachers leaving the profession last year, and more than 3 million working days of sick leave taken last year—a rise of more than 50% compared with pre-pandemic levels. Teachers and school staff are struggling, just like their pupils. While I do not claim that mindfulness is a panacea, I think we can clearly demonstrate that, first, it can be part of the solution to these twin crises, and secondly, the necessity of the Government to act.

Mindfulness programmes are becoming increasingly popular in schools and educational settings worldwide, with a growing quantitative evidence base emerging from research studies. Mindfulness in schools is about introducing children to skills as early as possible to support their lifelong wellbeing. It has benefits for educators, too, including stress regulation and reduction, increased self-compassion and teaching efficacy. Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is considered to be the godfather of modern mindfulness, said:

“Mindfulness means intentionally paying attention to present-moment experience, inside ourselves, our minds and bodies, and in our environment, with an attitude of openness, curiosity, kindness and care.”

That has never been more needed. Emma Mills, headteacher at Birchwood Community High School in Warrington North, wrote in the Times Educational Supplement:

“Lockdown has had a profound effect on our young people: significant social and educational milestones missed; an increased reliance on social media and the online world. We had already seen the challenges and negative influences of social media in schools long before Covid, but lockdown has exacerbated these ten-fold.

Attendance in schools is shockingly low, and safeguarding concerns are through the roof, as are mental health concerns. We are seeing a generation of children who lack empathy, lack resilience and for whom mental health problems have become part of everyday life.

Anxiety, self-harm and suicidal ideation have become part of our teenagers’ vocabulary…It is an unforgiving world full of trolls, hate and vitriol. It is a world we cannot remove or escape, so we need to make sure—

our young people—

“are equipped to deal with it.”

The Mindfulness Initiative’s 2021 report, “Implementing Mindfulness in Schools: An Evidence-Based Guide”, draws on earlier research, including the 2015 “Mindful Nation UK” report from the all-party group on mindfulness, and lays out a robust framework for mindfulness-based interventions in education. I am happy to provide a copy of that report to all interested Members and the Minister. It notes:

“Positive outcomes for children and young people include improved psycho-social and physical health and wellbeing, reduced mental health problems (including stress and depression), and improved social and emotional skills, behaviour, cognition and learning and academic performance.”

Mindfulness trains students to understand and direct their attention with greater awareness and skill, which can improve the capacity of children to focus and concentrate, with less distractions, and develop their working memory and ability to plan. It can help them to recognise worry, manage difficulties and cope with stresses like exams. Self-regulation can help to manage impulsivity and reduce conflict and oppositional behaviour. Although it should not be used as a disciplinary tool, it can help to take the heat out of a situation by providing greater space between stimulus and reaction, and helping a student to understand their feelings, behaviours and the choices they are making.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I declare an interest as co-chair of the all-party group on mindfulness, who wrote part of the report, which I am delighted she is reciting. More than 300 parliamentarians have been on mindfulness courses in this place, to great benefit. The hon. Lady is very welcome to come on the one that is starting in a couple of weeks’ time, as indeed are you, Mr Gray—I am sure it will do you a lot of good.

[Tim Loughton]

On this specific point—and it is good that something constructive is coming out of this whole ghastly episode of Brianna Ghey, with the great work that her mother is doing—does the hon. Lady agree that, in schools, it is important that mindfulness is an all-school approach and that it is not used just for certain young people with problems? It is important that mindfulness in schools is enjoyed entirely as a whole-school approach and that it is non-judgmental. That is what makes it so popular.

[Charlotte Nichols]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Indeed, he wrote a fantastic foreword to the report to which I drew the House’s attention. He is right about the whole-school approach, which I will come to later. I am sure that Mr Gray and I, and other hon. Members present, will be pleased to learn more about the sessions that the APPG on mindfulness is running.

Warrington North is only a short drive from the Welsh border. This policy has already been introduced by the Welsh Government as part of the curriculum for wellbeing. Although that is a long-term strategy, early indications from Wales and the schools in Warrington have been positive in the short and medium term.

Beth, a reception teacher trained through Mindfulness for learning, said:

“Mindfulness has become part of the children’s daily routine and we teach children breathing techniques to support their regulation but I was not aware how the course would impact my own well-being. I now have an understanding of the importance of mindfulness and how it allows and teaches me to respond rather than react to different aspects of my day. Now having personally experienced mindfulness as a practice, it has had a positive influence on my teaching.”

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

As the hon. Member’s constituency neighbour, it is great to see Esther in the Public Gallery today, as well as Tom from the Warrington Guardian, when we are discussing this issue in Parliament. When Esther and I met Dr Jain at the Appleton medical centre, we talked about the overall benefits of mindfulness for the general health of the population. Although we are talking about this in schools, there are real benefits beyond schools. Training young people for these skills for the future will benefit many people over many years. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Charlotte Nichols]

I thank the hon. Member, my next-door constituency neighbour, for that intervention, and I completely agree. That is why this practice should start in primary school. Developing those skills very early on in a person’s life can set them up to have those skills through their life, and I think we will see the benefits of these mindfulness-based interventions throughout people’s lives. This is a long-term plan and strategy. We will not necessarily see many of the benefits right away, but we know we are storing up positive outcomes for the future in a range of areas.

A headteacher from one of my secondary schools told me that embedding a culture of mindfulness was

“changing the way we deal with behaviour incidents, taking away reactivity and helping students and staff to calm down to the point we can better engage about what’s going on. When kids are in isolation, it’s a really useful tool for helping them to reflect and taking the heat out of situations, and guiding them to make better choices”.

Research shows that three features are particularly important to effectiveness and sustainability: the quality and experience of the teacher’s mindfulness practice, how a programme is implemented, and the use of a whole-school approach. Mindfulness is not just about discrete lessons, but should be in the form of a mindfulness thread that runs throughout the day—the way we respond to each other, the way we move around and the way we build relationships, eat food, exercise, and so on.

Sessions on mindfulness in the curriculum are a way to build and develop the skills needed to take it into the rest of the school day and the school’s ethos. It is about giving teachers and school leaders the training and support they need through the postgraduate certificate in education curriculum and in continuing professional development, to be able take it and adapt it to best suit the needs of their school community, which is vital. While we believe the cost implications would be modest, the evidence supports our view that this would pay for itself over time by reducing some of the burden on mental health services, freeing up capacity for more acute cases and providing dividends on the associated costs of unmet mental health need over the long term. This is an investment worth making for the future.

I want to put on the record my thanks to the community in Warrington who, during a cost of living crisis, have dug deep to support this campaign, working with the Mindfulness in Schools Project. I thank the Warrington Guardian and Tom Bedworth in particular; Warrington Wolves; the Warrington Wolves Charitable Foundation, Warrington Borough Council; the business community, including the EngineRooms, Sam Small Ink and Twinkle Time Melts; and all those who have fundraised, including on Wear Pink for Peace Day in November on what would have been Brianna’s 17th birthday. I thank the schools in Warrington, which have gone into this with open minds and hearts, and, in particular, Brianna’s school, Birchwood Community High School.

Above all, I want to thank Esther. Brianna Ghey was sassy, beautiful, kind, courageous and authentically herself. She was loved fiercely, and her death was unspeakably tragic. No parent should ever have to bury their child, but to have gone through what Esther has and to have the drive to seek positive change in the wake of that takes extraordinary courage and compassion. Esther is perhaps the most remarkable person I have ever met. She does not want the sympathy or pity of those here today, but a commitment to stand alongside her and our community in Warrington to deliver a lasting legacy for her daughter. We want to promote empathy, compassion and kindness throughout society, and I hope today’s debate brings us one step closer to achieving that, with a modest, evidence-based ask to put mindfulness on to the national curriculum for the benefit of pupils, staff and our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Indeed, but I do not want to try our Chair’s patience too much by moving too far beyond mindfulness, which is of course the subject of the debate. I have taken a very active interest in these matters for a long time, in my time at the Department for Education and at the Home Office, and otherwise in Parliament, and I think social media companies can do more.

Of course, we have just legislated in the Online Safety Act 2023. Most social media companies stipulate a minimum age of 13, but it is not uncommon for people to find a way around that minimum age. With the Online Safety Act, those companies will have to say how they are going to enforce that minimum age and then deliver on it. They are also going to have to ensure that they are protecting children from harmful content and removing, in good time, content that is illegal and identified as such. That is the legislation, but we do not need to wait for a law to do some of those things. I would say to everybody working in the technology field or in social media, most of whom have families themselves, that we all have a shared responsibility to think about the mental health, wellbeing and true interests of children and young people growing up.

I was just talking about the range of extracurricular activities, and I want to mention the range of support across Government for those, including the national youth guarantee and the enrichment partnerships pilot. We are also encouraging children to spend time in nature and to take in their surroundings, which I think the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will welcome. The natural world has so much to offer in terms of grounding us, and we can see the potential of that through our work on the national education nature park, for example.

We have spoken a couple of times, rightly, about wider mental health provision, particularly for children and adolescents. More resourcing has been and is going into CAMHS; the issue is that the demand has also been growing. An investment of up to a further £2.3 billion a year is going into transforming NHS mental health services, including meeting the aim that over 300,000 more children and young people will have been able to access NHS-funded mental health support by March 2024.

A number of things that colleagues have talked about, including mindfulness—the key subject of the debate—and self-regulation techniques, general wellbeing and building up resilience, have an important role in helping to prevent some of that pressure. One wants to make people resilient and resistant to some of the problems that inevitably come our way in life and able, if there are relatively low-level issues, to deal with them before they become bigger. One also wants, as I said, to relieve some of that pressure.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly mentioned counsellors and mental health professionals in schools. Many schools already provide targeted support to pupils through counsellors, pastoral staff, educational psychologists and other roles. No single intervention works for every pupil; again, I think it is important that settings have the freedom to decide what is the best support in their circumstance and for their cohort of children.

[Charlotte Nichols]

I want to ask a question about the idea of schools having flexibility. Of course, in general terms, I would welcome that, but is there not a worry that we would end up with a postcode lottery of provision in terms of the mental health support woven through schools? Areas such as Warrington would have fantastic things available for our young people, but children in towns in the surrounding area would still have issues that we could really be stepping in to address.

[Damian Hinds]

The senior mental health lead training that I talked about is a nationwide offer—I am talking about England, because, as hon. Members know, education is devolved. I was just about to talk about mental health support teams, which will similarly be a nationwide offer. It is a gradual roll-out. I think it is possible to combine having a nationwide approach with tailoring to one’s particular circumstances. We are continuing to roll out the mental health support teams to schools, and also to colleges. They will deliver evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health issues and will support the mental health leads with their whole-school approach. As of April last year, the support teams covered a little more than a third of our schools, with a little more than a third of pupils in the country. That number continues to grow; the coverage should extend to at least half of pupils by March 2025.

The hon. Member for Warrington North rightly mentioned the wellbeing of staff, which is an important subject, and the Government take it very seriously. At the start of this year, we announced £1.5 million of new investment to deliver a three-year mental health and wellbeing support package for school and college leaders. That was in addition to the just over £1 million already invested in the current support package.

More broadly, we have worked in partnership with the education sector and with mental health experts to develop the education staff wellbeing charter, which sets out commitments from my Department, Ofsted and schools and colleges on actions to improve staff wellbeing. In January, we published an update showing the significant progress made on our pledges. I would simply echo what the hon. Member for Warrington said, which is that taking part in mindfulness in certain circumstances can also have a benefit for teachers and leaders in schools.

I am enormously grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the potential of mindfulness in schools—Mr Gray, you have been gracious and generous in allowing us to move into some adjacent but clearly related areas that it is important to discuss—and the Government agree with her that mindfulness is one of the tools that can support wellbeing in school. Our approach of building the evidence base, including through the extensive trials I talked about, and supporting schools to make effective decisions on their provision will ensure that such opportunities are acted on.

[Charlotte Nichols]

I thank all the Members who contributed, with four political parties represented in the debate. I particularly thank the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for their thoughtful contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford referred to adult burdens on children’s shoulders—perhaps the most apt way I have heard this issue summed up—in highlighting the need for children to be given greater tools to cope. Dealing with this issue is our responsibility as legislators.

Many of us recall early childhood as a time when we were more fully there and present in mind and body in the moments of our lives. We had heightened senses, we were more open-minded, we were more accepting of new experiences and of others unlike ourselves, and we were more curious and more creative. Sadly, most of us tend to lose that innate capacity as we get older and in the face of growing demands and worries, competing pressures and the daily grind. Introducing mindfulness practice in schools can provide an opportunity to value, preserve, nurture and sustain those life-affirming states of mind in children, while enabling adults to partly reclaim them. I hope we can continue this conversation beyond today and use the example of what we are doing in Warrington to improve mental health for all our young people. I again thank all those who have taken part.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered mindfulness in schools.