Why schools should promote students' health and wellbeing-Education policy shouldn't focus solely on academic attainment

摘要

Education policy in England increasingly encourages schools to maximise students' academic attainment and ignore their broader wellbeing, personal development, and health. Schools are now monitored on attainment in a narrow range of academic subjects. Participation in the National Healthy Schools Programme no longer benefits from governmental targets or funding. Ofsted reports no longer focus specifically on how well schools promote students' health or personal development. Personal, social, and health education (PSHE) remains a non-statutory subject, and schools spend less and less time teaching it because of pressure to focus on academic subjects. The government recently proposed making the early years foundation stage profile-which offers a holistic view of the child including his or her personal, social, and emotional development-non-statutory. At the same time, it wants to introduce mandatory academic tests in the first year of primary school.