Mr. Donald Ewing:

I will tell the Senator a story. A young person I know talked about how their teachers made a reasonable adjustment by not asking the young person to read out loud in class in front of his or her peers because they knew it stressed the young person out. That agreement was put in place and agreed with the parents and the young person. It made a massive difference. What was illuminative about this case was that it was not being asked to read out loud per sethat caused the young person the stress, but the constant fear that it would happen at any point in the day.

Working under low levels of stress every day can be quite pernicious. We might think about doing something about it such as changing our role, speaking to our line manager or shifting career. Young people in schools do not have that choice. They cannot change their track. All they can do is to ask for their parents and the adults who teach them to do things differently to take away that stress. I am perhaps old-fashioned in the view that I do not think any child at primary school should ever be stressed for more than a moment in time until something is done about it. We know the reality for many of our children is they are consistently under a lot of stress.