Leadership

Children And Young People’s Writing In 2017/18

This report by the National Literacy Trust, used data from 47,786 pupils in the UK aged 8 to 18 to find out how many children and young people enjoy writing, how often they write in their free time, and what they think about writing. It found that half (50.9%) of children and young people in 2017/18 said that they either only enjoy writing a bit or not at all. Overall, fewer children and young people in 2017/18 said that they enjoy writing compared with the year before, decreasing from 50.7% to 49.2%. Leadership Briefing (142)

Fewer children and young people said in 2017/2018 that they enjoy writing and that they write something in their free time daily. Children and young people also think less positively about writing than they used to.

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      string(3998) "The report uses data from 9,170 pupils aged 8 to 11 who answered writing questions as part of our Annual Literacy Survey that we conducted between November 2017 and January 2018. Main Findings: Two-thirds (68.5%) of 8 to 11-year-old pupils say they enjoy writing in 2017/18. However, this also means that just under a third (31.5%) say that they don’t enjoy writing. Fewer pupils aged 8 to 11 in 2017/18 said that they enjoy writing compared with the previous year. Only 1 pupil in 5 aged 8 to 11 say that they write something in their free time on a daily basis, while 1 in 4 say that they write something that isn’t for school a few times a week. Overall, 1 in 4 pupils aged 8 to 11 say that they rarely or never write something in their free time. Fewer pupils aged 8 to 11 in 2017/18 said that they write daily in their free time, compared with the previous year. The percentage of 8 to 11-year-olds who write daily outside school is at its lowest level since starting surveying children and young people’s writing behaviours in 2010. Pupils aged 8 to 11 who say they enjoy writing are nearly three times as likely to say that they write something daily in their free time as their peers who don’t enjoy writing (27.3% vs 10.5%). Conversely, three times as many pupils who don’t enjoy writing say that they rarely or never write something in their spare time compared to their peers who enjoy it (44.4% vs. 16.1%). Around three-fifths of pupils aged 8 to 11 have positive attitudes towards writing, believing that writing is fun (65.9%) and cool (60.2%). However, 1 in 3 (30.5%) pupils said they only write when they have to and large numbers of pupils in this age group also reported facing significant barriers to writing, including having trouble deciding what to write (45.5%), struggling with spelling and punctuation (34.7%) and finding writing difficult (19.4%). Over three times as many pupils aged 8 to 11 who say that they enjoy writing say that writing is fun (84.5% vs 25.4%) and writing is cool (76.5% vs 24.4%) compared with their peers who don’t enjoy writing. Children who don’t enjoy writing are significantly more likely face barriers to writing than their peers who do enjoy writing, in particular, finding writing difficult (32.2% vs 13.7%), only writing when they have to (48.9% vs 22.1%), and having trouble deciding what to write (55.7% vs 40.8%). Conclusions: This report finds a year-on-year decline in how much pupils aged 8 to 11 enjoy writing and how often they write something that isn’t for school on a daily basis. This is a worrying trend when taking into account previous research by the National Literacy Trust that shows that children’s writing enjoyment and attainment are linked. Indeed, in 2016 seven times as many children and young people who enjoy writing wrote above the expected level for their age compared with those who don’t enjoy writing (23.2% vs 3.2%). This report also finds that while the majority of 8 to 11-year-olds believe writing is fun or cool, significant numbers of pupils face barriers to writing: struggling with spelling and punctuation, having trouble deciding what to write, finding the task of writing in itself difficult, and only writing when they have to. These barriers are more considerable for children who don’t enjoy writing. WEB LINK Writing Enjoyment, Behaviours And Attitudes In 8 To 11-Year-Olds In 2017/18Keywords Writing enjoyment, behaviours, attitudes, 8 To 11-year-olds, barriers, school, children "
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Leadership

Writing Enjoyment, Behaviours And Attitudes In 8 To 11-Year-Olds In 2017/18

15 May 2018

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Leadership

Children’s and Young People’s Writing in 2015

3 Nov 2016

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      string(472) "... who is eligible for treatment. Failure to compel universal reporting across service outcomes may impede government plans to improve mental health services for children and young people. WEB LINK Access To Children And Young People’s Mental Health Services – 2018Keywords Mental Health Services, young people, access, children, specialist services, waiting ..."
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      string(5140) "Over recent years there has been increasing understanding of the importance of young people’s mental health, as well as rising concern about the apparently increasing demand for such services and difficulties for some young people in accessing support. But promises about improved data and accountability have not, so far, been matched by the delivery of consistent and transparent data reporting. This report has has sought to improve the understanding of children’s mental health prevalence and access issues by securing data from individual service providers and publishing this, as far as possible at a consolidated national level. This latest report looks at the increased demand for children’s mental health services; what proportion of those referred for support are not accepted and how they are then treated; and what changes to service availability are emerging. Key Findings: The number of referrals to specialist children’s mental health services has increased by 26 per cent over the last five years. This is a substantial increase, indicating that services are coming under increasing strain. This is also despite a population increase of only 3 per cent. Rejection rates remain high: as many as one in four children (24.2 per cent) referred to specialist mental health services were rejected in 2017/18. These rates have failed to improve substantially over the last 5 years. We estimate that there were at least 55,800 children not accepted into treatment in 2017/18. The real figure is likely to be far higher as a number of providers did not disclose referral numbers. The most common reason for referrals being rejected was that children’s mental health conditions were not serious enough to meet the eligibility criteria for treatment. Among those excluded by threshold criteria were young people who had self-harmed or experienced abuse. Most providers do not follow up with children who have been unable to access treatment. The outcomes for these children are often unknown – with no consensus as to who is responsible for supporting them. Many areas of the country lack sufficient alternative services for young people who have not been accepted for treatment. As many as a quarter of local authorities have phased out vital support services, including school-based mental health services, family counselling and support for those living with domestic abuse. The average median waiting time for children in 2017/18 was 34 days to receive an initial assessment and 60 days to receive treatment. This has been broadly stable over recent years for assessment times, but has improved a little for the longest times to treatment. Many children still face unacceptably long waiting times, and there are great disparities across providers. The longest wait for treatment reported by mental health service providers in England ranges from 188 days, to just 1 day. On average, children in London experience the longest wait for specialist treatment (64 days) – while those in the South of England have the shortest average wait – 58 days. Significantly, current waiting times are far longer than the government’s new standard of 4 weeks, set out in its green paper on children’s mental health. Average waiting times are currently twice as long as this proposed standard. There are many loopholes in the current system for reporting and disclosing data for CAMHS in England under Freedom of Information law, and many children’s mental health providers did not provide basic information on access to services that we requested from them. Such practices greatly obscure our understanding of the state of services in England. Privatised service provision poses further barriers to transparency around publicly funded services, as independent providers are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. There may also be a risk of ‘gaming’ of waiting time standards from some providers. There is a danger that thresholds for securing treatment are raised to meet new standards on waiting times – denying more children access to support. Broader, more consistent government accountability measures for reporting data on CAMHS are therefore urgently required, including clear definitions of who is eligible for treatment. Failure to compel universal reporting across service outcomes may impede government plans to improve mental health services for children and young people. WEB LINK Access To Children And Young People’s Mental Health Services – 2018Keywords Mental Health Services, young people, access, children, specialist services, waiting times, treatment, provision, delivery, data reporting "
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Leadership

Access To Children And Young People’s Mental Health Services – 2018

17 Oct 2018

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      string(3308) "Children and young people’s enjoyment of writing is at almost its lowest level in a decade. Although there has been some improvement since 2019, and a significant jump in the number of children writing daily outside school, there is still work to be done. Since the onset of the global pandemic and lockdown, there has been a blurring of the boundaries between home and school. This report outlines our findings on children and young people’s writing before and during lockdown. 58,346 children and young people aged 9 to 18 in the UK took part in our Annual Literacy Survey between January and March 2020, while 4,141 children and young people aged 8 to 18 in the UK took part in the survey during lockdown between May and early June 2020.Key Findings:Writing enjoyment2 in 5 (39.8%) children and young people said at the beginning of 2020 that they enjoy writing; this is an increase on the number of children and young people from the year before (35.8%) 1 in 6 (17.5%) children and young people said they enjoyed writing more during lockdown than they had beforeWriting frequencyAfter recording the lowest daily writing rate in 2019 since we started asking the question in 2010, the percentage of children and young people who say that they write outside class on a daily basis has recovered over the past year, increasing from 16.5% in 2019 to 21.5% in 2020Additionally, 1 in 5 (21.4%) children said that they had been writing more in their free time during lockdown compared with beforeCreative writing during lockdownMore children and young people are expressing themselves through creative writing during lockdown:2 in 5 have written more short stories or fiction (39.7%) and letters (39.3%)1 in 4 (27.1%) have written more in a diary or journal1 in 5 (20.8%) have written more poetryLockdown has given many children the inspiration and conditions to write more creatively. Children and young people told us that lockdown has:Given them more time and space to think and generate ideasInspired their writingMade more digital writing formats available to themWriting and wellbeing during lockdown2 in 5 (41.3%) children said writing makes them feel better1 in 4 (24.8%) children said writing helps when they feel sad that they can’t see friends and familyThe link between writing and mental wellbeing was further strengthened when children engaged in creative forms of writingChildren who said that writing makes them feel better were:5 times more likely to write poems (66.5% vs. 13.4%) during lockdown than their peers4 times more likely to write in a diary or journal (61.9% vs. 14.8%) or to write a short story or fiction (61.1% vs. 15.1%) during lockdown than their peersLink: Children and Young People’s Writing During the COVID-19 Lockdown in 2020"
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Leadership

Children and Young People’s Writing During the COVID-19 Lockdown in 2020

30 Jun 2020