Downing Street Says » Kids Under Stress

» Friday, October 12, 2007

Kids Under Stress

Asked if the Prime Minister was worried by suggestions that children of primary school age were under too much stress, the PMS replied that there had been a statement released by the Minister for Children, Beverley Hughes overnight that set out the Government’s position on the subject.

He went on to say that the report’s author himself says that every generation has its stresses and schools themselves are safe havens and a beacon of light. The vast majority of children go to better schools, enjoy better health, live in better housing and live in more affluent households than they did ten years ago.

The PMS said it was true that childhood had changed and the Government was undertaking a massive nationwide consultation on the Children’s Plan, talking to young people and their families about what makes for a happy, healthy and safe childhood.

Asked if the Government accepted that it could and should have done more in the last ten years to look at children’s wellbeing instead of encouraging league tables, the PMS reiterated that the vast majority of children went to better schools, enjoyed better health, lived in better housing and lived in more affluent households than they did ten years ago, so the matter had to be looked at in the round.

Put that children would be worse off if the Government had not improved schools and the level of affluence, the PMS replied that when looking in totality at the experience faced by children, they were in many respects in a better situation than they were ten years ago.

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