Ms Maeve McCafferty:

I will further explain how teachers and HSCL teachers are addressing well-being, social and emotional difficulties in children. This is done through the curriculum subject of social, personal and health education, SPHE. In DEIS schools there are two excellent programmes - the incredible years teaching management programme and the friends first volunteer programme - that focus on well-being and mental health. In addition, teachers are doing yoga, mindfulness and meditation with their pupils in the classroom. Deputy Funchion is correct that it is one of the key issues we hear about from all teachers, not just from HSCL teachers, around the increasing anxiety and mental health issues in very young children. Together with that, test anxiety is a particular issue and it is not helped that there is an increasing emphasis on standardised testing, and that standardised tests are being used to determine resources. It increases the stakes; it puts more pressure on parents, teachers and everybody. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is restructuring the primary school curriculum.

Submissions have come in and they strongly suggest that there needs to be more emphasis on well-being, which is one of the biggest topics at present.