"As a result of the survey we reviewed and amended PSHE schemes of work, we are currently working on a "Green Travel Plan", a morning breakfast club was established and we further developed 6th Form mentoring."
Young People into 2022
PRESS RELEASE: The Young People into 2022 report
FOR FURTHER DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT:
Dr David Regis, Research Manager, SHEU Tel.(01392) 667272 Email. david.regis@sheu.org.uk
We have just published Young People into 2022, which presents figures from a sample of nearly 150,000 young people (149,090) completing surveys in 2020 and 2021. This report is the 35th in a series begun in 1987. The full report may be obtained in PDF format by application to SHEU.
This is the first report we have produced in this series which includes figures from more than one calendar year, which we did because of the impact of coronavirus on schools (and ourselves!).
Some of the latest figures are different from those we last published in 2019, but not all the differences are new – it’s better to describe them as continuations of trends that we have seen going on for some time. And some might be meaningless ‘wobbles’ in the data set.
- New or sharper turn:
decline going to the dentist in the last year (p.17)
decline in being bullied at school (p.28)
decline in experimentation with vape products (p.58)
decline in being offered and trying cannabis (p.59-60)
decline in enjoying school lessons (p.76)
decline in intentions to stay in full-time education (p.77)
decline in awareness of free condoms (p.94)
increase in thinking school cares if they are happy (p.96) - Continuation of existing trend:
decline scoring high for self-esteem (p.81)
increase missing lunch (p.3)
decline in tried smoking (p.54) - No change 2019-2020/21:
wellbeing scores (p.82) and resilience scores (p.83)
Angela Balding, Surveys Manager at SHEU, comments:
"It’s been a peculiar couple of years for ourselves and for everyone involved with education. Nonetheless, we can see lots of results showing young people getting through their lives with success, and not taking unnecessary risks.
"However, a minority of young people do give us concern, either because of poor emotional wellbeing or risky behaviour or both. We can see plenty of experimentation with vapes by non-smokers (which is new) and a further fall in the self-esteem scores of the older females in secondary schools (p.81).
"If a young person meets one criterion for concern, they are more likely to meet other such criteria; risk and poor wellbeing are not evenly distributed. For example, on page 61 we show a connection between lower satisfaction with life and increased likelihood of experimentation with drugs.
"As well as these many connections between individual behaviours, we can show that social and economic background factors may have a significant influence on young people’s wellbeing and lifestyle. Minority ethnicity, being LGBT and having a disability are all associated with worse outcomes in this report. "
Dr. David Regis, Research Manager at SHEU, comments:
"Don’t blame COVID for all of children’s poor wellbeing. It is hard to disentangle the impact of coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions from other effects. There has been much talk in the press about a ‘mental health crisis’ among young people, for example, but we do not see a crisis in our figures and we do not attribute any declines in young people’s emotional health and wellbeing exclusively to the pandemic and its consequences. For example, a fall in the oldest females’ esteem scores is of concern, but these scores were in decline long before anyone had heard of COVID-19 and may continue to decline after we have learned to live with it. (There may well be a crisis in the delivery of mental health services to young people, but I am not able to shed any light on this.)
"With all the criticism of school lockdowns, we were pleasantly surprised to see that pupils’ general perceptions of school were no worse and may have improved between 2019 and 2020/21."
Where are the figures from?
Every year, SHEU carry out healthy lifestyle surveys with young people for local authorities and each year these surveys involve tens of thousands of young people. At the end of each calendar year, we put all the results from all the surveys together, and publish a report. These reports contain findings from over 100 health-related behaviour questions using answers from pupils in primary and secondary schools. They tell us about what they do at home, at school, and with their friends.
What’s in the report? The report has 7 chapters: CHAPTER 1 - Food choices & weight control CHAPTER 2 - Doctor & Dentist CHAPTER 3 - Health & Safety CHAPTER 4 - Family & Home CHAPTER 5 - Legal & Illegal Drugs CHAPTER 6 - Exercise & Sport CHAPTER 7 - Social & Personal The pages in each chapter show results from one question (sometimes two) and may also show links between questions and trends in responses going back over decades. |
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Notes
1. SHEU (the Schools and Students Health Education Unit) was founded in Exeter University in 1977 by John Balding and has operated independently since 1997. It is the leading provider of health and lifestyle surveys for schools and holds a unique set of databanks showing levels of and trends in young people's behaviours since in the 1980s.
2. The sample size was 149,090, but not all respondents answered all questions, and only 111,281 were in the target year groups. Ages and year groups reported were: 3. We discourage surveys being conducted on Mondays, so ‘the day before the survey’ should have been a normal school day, and similarly ‘the week before the survey’ will not have been a holiday week. |
Phase |
Year group |
Ages |
Primary |
Year 4 |
8-9 years old |
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Year 6 |
10-11 years old |
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Secondary |
Year 8 |
12-13 years old |
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Year 10 |
14-15 years old |
4. The accumulated databank from the hundreds of school surveys we support each year, involving tens of thousands of young people, is a valuable resource of information and provides many opportunities for insight and research. But we caution against simple reporting and interpretation of our figures as being from 'a national survey'; it didn’t happen that way.
Many authorities use us every other year, and so will appear and disappear from the data sets, and there are some trends in which we can see evidence of a regional effect in the figures we obtain – as in the case of figures for eating wholemeal bread on most days in the middle 2000s, which shows a ‘rollercoaster’: |
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Headlines and trends from the 2020-21 data set (Young People into 2022):
CHAPTER 1 - Food choices & weight control
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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CHAPTER 2 - Doctor & Dentist
Headlines |
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Trends |
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CHAPTER 3 - Health & Safety
Headlines |
1/3 of pupils (more males) reported having an accident in the last year that needed medical attention. |
Trends |
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Links |
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CHAPTER 4 - Family & Home
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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CHAPTER 5 - Legal & Illegal Drugs
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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CHAPTER 6 - Exercise & Sport
Headlines |
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Trends |
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CHAPTER 7 - Social & Personal
Headlines |
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Trends |
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Links |
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What about coronavirus?
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