Top private schools – including Harrow and Wellington – are testing pupils’ mental health as teen stress levels reach all-time high because of social media bullying.
There are currently 15 schools using an early warning system that helps teachers identify potential self-harm and drug abuse and 30 were already involved in a recent study.
Teachers say they are opting for the tool as a preventive measure in an era where adolescents are facing old-age challenges in a “more pressurised academic environment”, which means some “are finding it harder to cope”.
The schools, which also include some from the state sector as well, are using the tool called Affective Social (AS) Tracking to present teens with a series of scenarios where they display patterns of thinking that may affect their behaviour.
Once teachers have collected the data, they are able to work on improving their well-being. In some cases, for example, pupils have displayed a tendency for low self-esteem and teachers have intervened by putting them in charge of projects and making them feel appreciated.
Dr Simon Walker, the cognitive scientist who runs AS, said the tool is designed to measure the part of the brain that controls “how we plan and execute our actions”, known as the hippocampus.
He said: “This is our mental taxi driver and it configures the steering route children take, which is usually the most familiar path. We can tell with 82 per cent accuracy whether they are going to crash. We can identify risks of self-harm, eating disorders and social competency issues, like dominating other children.”
Schools currently using the tool provide the test twice a year in October and May. Dr Walker added: “Normal data asks questions like ‘do you have suicidal thoughts?’ But children are often reluctant to tell teachers how they really feel. Instead, they are evaluated not just on the response but how quickly on different scenarios.”
A ‘toxic mix’ of exam pressures, too much homework and cyberbullying was to blame for a rise in the number of primary school children attempting suicide, according to a survey published earlier this year by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Teachers blame ‘rising’ levels mental health issues on more “pressurised” environments at school, partly fuelled by pushy parents, more pressure to perform well on exams and the constant presence of social media.
Chris Jeffery, headmaster at the Grange School in Cheshire and chair of the HMC well-being group, was an early adopter of the AS.
Mr Jeffery said: “This generation is facing the same challenges that all adolescents have faced for generations but in a much more pressurised academic context that has meant more of them are finding it hard to cope.
“The growing number of manifestations of mental ill-health in schools means that we need an early warning system to spot the issues young people are struggling to cope with and the pressures they are under.
“I don’t think that we can easily say that there is a single cause to this. It’s a combination of enormous cultural, technological and policy factors that have formed the atmosphere that our young people have to cope with.
“The pressure of exams is an obvious reason, so is coming to terms with the growth of social media, which has led partly to a discernible rise in perfectionism and the idea that this can be achieved, because we see it around all the time in the profiles of others.”
Ed Venables, the house master who has led the pilot at Wellington College, said pushy parents, a shift in attention to focus on mental health and a rise in anxiety were partly to blame for the modern struggles of young people.
He said: “Pupils are going through the things I went through but kids get a lot more support now and they are less required to struggle on their own.”