We all remember high school as a hectic time, filled with exam pressures, popularity, picking the right prom dress, and not to mention puberty.

But if you asked today’s adults to compare this level of stress to that of a worldwide pandemic, they would surely scoff.

It is therefore horrifying and disheartening to read that children have, on average, been faring better under the conditions of lockdown than they do with the anxieties caused by attending school during normal times.

A recent study by Bristol University found that in October 2019, 54% of 13 and 14-year-old girls were at risk of anxiety, compared to 26% of boys the same age. 

When surveyed again in May – two months after lockdown restrictions were imposed – these figures had dropped to 45% among girls and just 18% for boys.

This report is damning to our entire education system, which is broken in many areas and needs an overhaul. 

In my experience as a nanny, I have had the pleasure to be a support (or at the end of a Zoom call) for several families, usually with a hectic work/life balance and watch them come together during lockdown. I’ve seen children become less stressed over the past few months.

Pre-covid, I was heart-broken to see a six-year-old friend of a boy I picked up from school in tears because she was so scared of her ‘big’ maths test the next day. 

Children need to be children – they have their whole adult lives to be anxious about deadlines, achievements, bills, debts and keeping a roof over their heads. 

It gets even more concerning when we consider the Good Childhood Report, released just last week, which put the UK at the bottom of 23 countries when it comes to how satisfied children are with their lives.

‘They have the second highest levels of sadness,’ warned Mark Russell, chief executive of The Children’s Society. ‘What have we done that’s created a society in which 15 year olds feel this way? We should be ashamed. And we should be galvanised to change.’

It shouldn’t actually come as that much of a surprise that children are stressed about school.

As expectations increase, targets become more prominent and the emphasis on academic achievement and university places becomes more intense, things are only getting worse for students.

Many teachers are leaving the profession as they feel their vocation is no longer to inspire youngsters, but to cram as many as possible through the curriculum.

According to the Department for Education, around 30% of new teachers left the classroom between 2012 and 2017 and we currently have the lowest number of teachers since 2013.

The reasons I’ve heard from friends are all the same – workload is too high, pay is too low and government policy is too stifling. This is made worse by stringent lesson plans with no time or remit for creativity and open-minded tangents in the classroom.

This is not the fault of the teachers, but rather emphasis should be placed on the targets placed at their door.

Going to school is a minefield – it is a regimented routine that many young people are not capable of battling through

For so many children, school has become almost like a testing lab.

Even the holidays are crammed with revision – one teenager I knew spent most of Christmas Day anxious because she was so worried about passing her January mocks. 

And the recent exam scandal proves she was probably right to do so, as these grades may have defined her future far more than she ever realised. 

They shouldn’t be trained through success and failure – we should teach them through play. They need to become actual people, with individual personalities, their own likes and interests, opinions and values.

Children do this through developing socially with other kids, asking questions, exploring the world around them and reading without the pressure of being asked 10 questions about the book afterwards.

It’s stressful enough for those who take academic paths, but what about the children who instead have skills elsewhere? Those who have a future that isn’t about literary or mathematical intelligence, but who want to be practical or technical and do a job that suits their personality rather than their brain?

Going to school is a minefield – it is a regimented routine that many young people are not capable of battling through. And with funding being cut, access to support staff and learning mentors is more difficult than ever, children in need fall through the cracks. 

It’s little wonder that many kids have found lockdown a relief.

Gone are the six lesson days, plus homework, along with the teacher criticisms, the exam mocks and mock mocks and mock mock mocks that defined their day.

Gone is the act of avoiding the person bullying you in the corridor. 

One young person I spoke to told me: ‘I have worked so much better during lockdown. It feels less pressured and my parents have been so supportive letting me go by my own schedule and take my own breaks when I need to. 

‘I do think time with a teacher is important but I have been dreading going back to school. I have learned a lot for my exams during lockdown, but I think I have also learned a lot about being independent, keeping focus and trusting myself.

‘It became normal and I was able to find my own structure, one which didn’t stress me out quite as much.’

It shouldn’t be this way.

We need to return to a system that puts happiness, life skills and social skills first, and testing second.

This is a huge wake-up call to anyone who cares about children.

We need to take a good, hard look at our education model. The answers are there, obvious and waiting to be solved – just look at the Scandinavian models. Finland, routinely tops rankings of global education systems but has no ranking systems — all pupils, regardless of ability, are taught in the same classes. As a result, the gap between the weakest and the strongest pupils is the smallest in the world. Finnish schools also give relatively little homework and have only one mandatory test at age 16.

For this upcoming generation to lead the world, we need to be the change that we expect them to be. The onus is on us to support them more and find ways of decreasing their anxiety.

While there is much that parents and teachers can do, the real pressure is on those at the very top. They must make school a place where children embrace education, not let it destroy their mental health.

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