Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No123
Themes: transgender, union and unionist ‘extremism’, and the need to rethink mental health in schools
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This is the penultimate newsletter before we take a summer break in July, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has written to us, and for us, over this term.
We hear rumblings coming from some of the teachers’ unions, an anxiety about SUE questioning what is going on in schools. Rather than address any of these concerns, unfortunately the trend at the moment appears to be that these ‘unions’ are simply doubling down, spreading idle gossip, and attempting to portray what we are doing as ‘extreme’ or ‘inappropriate’.
Rather than focusing on the declining state of our schools – the loss of an academic focus all the way from the top of the educational pyramid down to teacher training – teaching unions, like many other institutions, appear to have lost their point and purpose. To some extent this is the very reason why we created SUE. That they find our very existence troubling is, we hope, a sign that we are having an impact.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank and to say a fond farewell to Kate Deeming, @deemingdreaming who has worked as our parent support worker for over 2 years.
Kate is a dance artist and community organiser who has also been labelled as ‘extreme’ for simply expressing her opinions about children, schools and the arts – especially around the issue of transgender ideology and the sexualising of children ... and yet she’s supposed to be the extreme one – go figure!
As most of you will be aware, the arts world is one of the most captured, which makes it almost impossible to find work if you aren’t painting sustainable rainbows on everything that you can.
Another reason for Kate’s departure is that she has found it difficult to identify a high school for her boy that has high academic standards and is not bogged down with social justice dogma. Back in her home state of Pennsylvania, some schools remain places of learning and so Kate is leaving us and will be sorely missed.
From my perspective, that a talented liberal arts educator feels the need to go to another country to find some freedom, work and a quality school suggests that we are indeed living in extreme times. Teachers’ unions take note.
Back in our actual extreme world, the SNP face another legal fight for not clarifying their transgender guidance in the public sector. For Women Scotland (FWS) believe that the Scottish government is dragging its feet after the Supreme Court ruling about biological sex. Susan Smith of FWS has explained that legal action may be necessary because ‘the Scottish government is still reluctant to withdraw things like transgender guidance for schools, which was unlawful even before this Supreme Court ruling’.
Additionally, she notes that four male murderers continue to be housed in women’s prisons. For the teachers’ unions, especially the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), which proudly claims that ‘trans women are women and trans men are men’, this incredible state of affairs is no doubt called progress. For the rest of us, it’s called extremism.
Schools are closing for the summer, but when we return, this matter of training children in transgender ideology needs to be sorted out.
Another ‘extreme’ story from this month came in the form of the headteacher who sent a letter to parents that insinuated that the Union Flag was ‘potentially offensive’.
As it happens, I feel some sympathy for this teacher, who I assume was conscious of the sectarian tensions that have been part of Scottish life. There is also the political tension related to Scottish nationalism that makes the Union Flag potentially more controversial than it would be in England.
Nevertheless, it does feel to me that we need to rethink the British flag. At a time when it has become the norm, especially in schools, to one-sidedly rubbish all things British, we need to be aware of the potential cynicism and alienation that this approach creates. Despite what we increasingly hear, Britain is one of the great nations of the world, not least in terms of the development of democracy and freedom, as well as the role the UK played in developing modern law, modern culture, and also some of the greatest educational institutions the world has ever seen.
This recognition does not and should not be one-dimensional, but it is important that each generation takes their society and their country seriously, learns from the past, and makes a better future. Being ‘offended’ and cynical will help nobody.
In that regard, and with reference to Stephen Griffith’s excellent article about the Royal Navy and the abolition of slavery, it is worth noting the West Africa Squadron Memorial Fund.
The education about slavery has grown in schools over the last decade and appears to be one of those issues that is focused on, in large part because it is a way of criticising Britain and the West. Learning about the past is useful, but we should at least be aware that it was Britain that, as the Memorial Fund reminds us, had ‘the only force in the world that had the drive, willingness and firepower to curtail the slave trade’.
At a time when power and authority are almost always treated with suspicion, we need to be more sophisticated and balanced about our understanding of the genuinely liberal and progressive tradition that Britain was historically, and hopefully in the future, will be at the centre of.
Stuart Waiton, SUE Chair
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Suffer the children: rethinking mental health in schools
Sebastian Monteux is a lecturer in mental health nursing.
A new report published by the Family Education Trust, Suffer the Children: Why having a ‘mental health professional’ in every school is not the answer, authored by Lucy Beney, offers a bold and timely challenge to the growing consensus around school-based mental health interventions. As Baroness Claire Fox writes in the foreword, the report critiques the well-intentioned but often counterproductive push to embed mental health professionals in every school.
Against the backdrop of a significant rise in mental health referrals – public data shows that referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services have increased by 53% since 2019, and nearly one in five young people aged 8–25 now carries a probable mental health diagnosis (Young Minds/NHS Digital) – Beney argues that these figures may not reflect a surge in genuine clinical need. Instead, she suggests they may point to the increasing medicalisation of ordinary childhood experiences. This trend, she contends, is being driven by what she refers to as the ‘mental health industrial complex’ – a rapidly expanding ecosystem of counsellors, private providers, online diagnostic tools, and social media influencers. This landscape, she argues, has dramatically widened the boundaries of what is now labelled and experienced as mental illness.
Schools, according to the report, have unwittingly become conduits for this shift, embedding emotional wellbeing so deeply into the culture of education that many children now interpret common emotional struggles as signs of mental illness. In doing so, they risk internalising a therapeutic identity – a self-fulfilling spiral reinforced by universal awareness campaigns and broad-brush interventions.
The report challenges the widely held assumption that expanding mental health provision in schools will automatically lead to improved outcomes. On the contrary, Beney warns that such interventions may actually exacerbate the problem by encouraging children to see themselves primarily through a therapeutic lens. Rather than resolving a crisis, the expansion of universal services may be one of its underlying causes.
Beney is particularly concerned about the role of unregulated and ideologically driven providers. Some actors in the mental health sector, especially in relation to gender identity, prioritise affirmation over inquiry and clinical accountability. These developments risk redefining normal developmental or emotional challenges as pathology and embedding controversial worldviews into therapeutic practice.
As schools increasingly take on responsibility for emotional wellbeing, the number of diagnosed conditions has continued to rise. Paradoxically, the more mental illness is discussed, the more children identify with its symptoms. The line between genuine clinical needs and normal emotional fluctuations has become dangerously blurred.
The report is particularly critical of the near-universal political support for placing a “mental health professional’ in every school. Beney questions what these roles actually entail, especially given the vague and subjective definitions of ‘mental illness’. Structural weaknesses in the counselling profession raise further concerns, as many such roles may end up being filled by volunteers or trainees rather than qualified practitioners.
Moreover, the professional bodies responsible for accrediting mental health workers have, according to the report, increasingly adopted ideological frameworks rooted in critical social justice and gender theory. This shift risks undermining both clinical objectivity and parental trust.
Another key concern highlighted in the report is the changing purpose of schools themselves. Traditionally, education aimed to guide children to knowledge, anchored in the intellectual inheritance and wisdom of previous generations. Today’s approach often centres on self-directed learning, emotional expression, and political consciousness. Concepts such as neurodiversity, critical race theory, and gender identity are now woven into the curriculum, especially within health and wellbeing education. While some of this is undoubtedly well-intentioned, it can crowd out more foundational educational goals and blur the boundary between education and activism.
Beney’s recommendations call for a return to first principles. Schools should focus on academic knowledge, character development, and strong relationships – offering children stability, guidance, and meaningful adult leadership. Identity should be allowed to form organically, grounded in family, community, and personal interests, rather than prematurely shaped by therapy culture or activist ideologies.
Her findings echo the work of researchers such as Dr Lucy Foulkes at Oxford University, who has proposed the ‘prevalence inflation hypothesis’ – the idea that increasing awareness and labelling of mental health conditions may lead to over-diagnosis and a lowering of the threshold for what constitutes mental illness. Foulkes and others worry that universal interventions can have unintended effects: encouraging self-diagnosis, fuelling anxiety, and pathologising normal emotions.
There are also growing concerns about the involvement of external mental health providers in schools. Some of these groups are less therapeutic specialists and more campaigning organisations, raising issues around accountability, content, and parental oversight.
Ultimately, Suffer the Children challenges us to reflect on how we’re responding to young people’s distress. Are we genuinely addressing the causes, or merely applying superficial fixes? Beney argues we must stop asking what’s wrong with children and start asking what’s wrong around them. Children need structure, strong relationships, consistent adult presence, and an education rooted in knowledge and moral purpose, not just access to therapeutic services.
In an age that promotes compassion, we may be unintentionally nurturing a culture of vulnerability. If we want to support resilience in young people, we must look beyond the language of diagnosis and therapy, and towards the kind of education and environment that allows them to thrive.
News round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight.
https://archive.is/6ijhZ Mark McDougall, School issues apology over 'offensive or sectarian' Union flag claim. 16/06/25
https://archive.is/g9QcH Celia Walden, Stop teaching white children to feel guilty. Between lectures on white privilege, the gender spectrum and toxic masculinity, the younger generation can’t catch a break. 16/06/25
https://archive.is/ssUbh James McEnaney, Scotland’s largest teaching union has warned that the government must provide additional resources if it is serious about tackling behaviour issues in schools. 17/06/25
https://archive.is/hFBit Stephen Daisley, How the SNP wrecked Scottish education. 18/06/25
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/22/no-more-experiments-on-children/ Stella O'Malley, No more experiments on children. The NHS’s puberty-blockers trial threatens to do irreversible damage to vulnerable youngsters. 22/06/25
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2d0ln068x4o BBC News, Every Glasgow secondary school set to lose its librarian. 20/06/25
https://archive.is/r55RR Michael Searles, Primary school children taught about the 300 flags of Pride. Parents claim Labour council has ignored concerns raised over leaflets handed out by Swindon and Wiltshire Pride charity. 20/06/25
https://www.thetimes.com/article/7c9a532d-c23e-4bcb-b649-d26562cda39a?shareToken=a08201e08748bdec574a4cf4e424b9c9 Sanchez Manning, Drag queen’s memoir joins English curriculum at top private school. A book by Panti Bliss is being taught alongside Shakespeare as part of a ‘diversification’ of literature at the £30,000-a-year Alleyn’s School in London. 17/06/25
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74z8l8vkx3o Branwen Jeffreys, Be ready to be shocked and offended at university, students told. 19/06/25
https://archive.is/j7RPR Telegraph, Schools must ‘decolonise’ special needs curriculum, says Ofsted inspector. Priya Bhagrath says system failing children with ‘diluted, colour-blind education’. 24/06/25
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