Are we ‘educating’ our children to be happy? – Focus on the National Curriculum.

Mental health problems are on the rise nationally and obesity is more prevalent than it used to be

Is it possible for what we teach children in schools (from Nursery up to College) to have a positive impact on their future mental and physical health… and also on our economy?

The National Curriculum was introduced in 1988 and hasn’t had a major overhaul since its inception. Is teaching Maths, English, Science, Geography, History, Design & Tech and foreign languages the priority?

Or would an approach of focusing first on mental health be more beneficial in our later years?

We believe that attempts to shoehorn in some mental health ‘awareness’ programme isn’t enough. It’s time we addressed this issue head-on and made some effective and long-lasting changes.

We will be focusing on both physical and mental health for this project and covering areas such as:

• The link between the food we eat and our own mental health.
• Montessori schools and other education models elsewhere in the world in comparison to our own – Scandinavia in particular
• Would a more hands-on approach to growing and preparing fruit and vegetables encourage children to eat more healthily into adulthood?
• PE v Fitness – is Physical Education enough to foster a healthy lifestyle?
• Are parents passing on their bad lifestyle habits? How can we combat this?

This project aims to come up with an alternative to the current National Curriculum. That means actionable, tested, working solutions.

We want to help create a positive future, one that is filled with people equipped to take better care of their own mental and physical health.

Prevention over cure.