Lesson one: believe in yourself

Schools must develop children's self-esteem, as well as their results, to help them reach their full potential.

Girls who don't have it are more likely to become teenage mothers or develop eating disorders. Boys for whom it's thin on the ground are more likely to attempt suicide or become violent. And now we are told that any 10-year-old who does not have much of it is likely to earn less as a young adult and experience more unemployment, even given equivalent academic achievement, so it matters to the economy. What is this magic dust? It's self-esteem, and it is as important to education as the three Rs or exam grades.

Girls who don't have it are more likely to become teenage mothers or develop eating disorders. Boys for whom it's thin on the ground are more likely to attempt suicide or become violent. And now we are told that any 10-year-old who does not have much of it is likely to earn less as a young adult and experience more unemployment, even given equivalent academic achievement, so it matters to the economy. What is this magic dust? It's self-esteem, and it is as important to education as the three Rs or exam grades.

This is the conclusion of research, extracting data from the past 30 years of the 1970 British Cohort Study, a longitudinal study of children born during one week in April 1970, conducted by Leon Feinstein for the London School of Economics's Centre for Economic Performance. Feinstein believes that schools might be focusing too much on exam results at the expense of children's psychological growth in general, and their self-esteem in particular. It is an uneasy message to hear on the day that the primary school league table results for England are published.

Of course, this is the headline of the research and there are qualifications and caveats. Children's self-esteem is affected by academic achievement, which is in turn influenced by family income and parental support, though by no means all high achievers have high self-esteem.

Nonetheless, the cohort study showed that, everything else being equal, such as grades, family circumstances and income, it's the children who had higher self-esteem at age 10 and who scored well on other psychological and social measures, such as friendships, behaviour and having a sense of control and autonomy, who were earning more by their late twenties.

Leaving aside whether income is the best measure of success, Feinstein is not the only one asking if schools are too focused on results. We witnessed a spate of conferences and seminars this autumn looking at whether, and if so how, schools could attend to and deliver self-esteem. The emphasis is now more on the "how" rather than "whether".

This week it was revealed that the Council for Awards in Children's Care and Education, which trains 20,000 nursery staff a year, emphasises that the positive has to be stressed in managing the behaviour of children. This means that children should not be labelled "naughty, silly or bad".

Ministers now accept that self-esteem helps children to do well in school, as well as behave responsibly. John Keast, in charge of Citizenship and PSHE for primary schools at the Qualification and Curriculum Authority, says: "If you work on children's self-esteem, the achievement will follow because children will be more secure and motivated."

It is what many in the profession have known for years. After a near lifetime in education in various capacities and now an executive member of the National Association of Governors and Managers, Melody Dougan is adamant.

"Self-esteem is absolutely fundamental to effective educational achievement, not just social and relationship education," she says. "It's particularly important, indeed vital, at primary level, because that's when the seeds are sown. Achievement is not about the number of facts you're able to absorb but about how effective you are as an individual."

If children's self-esteem is to have priority, schools may be tempted to treat it as a modular add-on, as another thing to "do" in the curriculum each week and tick off when complete.

Circle time, when children sit in the round and are encouraged to listen and speak positively and with respect about themselves and one another, is one popular approach. Personal, Social and Health Education lessons, intended to encourage reflection and the sharpening of identity, are another.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple, as Jenny Mosley, Director of the training consultancy "The Whole School Quality Circle Time Model", explains. If any initiative does not involve and enthuse the whole school, it will not work. "The concept of self-esteem has to be deeply embedded in the framework of the school, in all its systems. There is no point in doing circle time if the children feel disrespected or ignored at other times and by other adults. Every adult in a school has the potential to enhance pupils' self-esteem or to take away their energy. Children are like lightning conductors of teachers' moods. Unhappy teachers can create a wind of negativity."

In other words, activities in which children are listened to for half an hour but their suggestions go no further, or a morale-boosting discussion is followed by a lesson in which a teacher shouts or puts down a pupil or even a colleague, have limited benefit.

St Christopher School, the progressive independent school in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, has a reputation for producing confident and emotionally literate children who believe, in the words of its development officer, Geoff Edwards, "there's nothing out there that I can't crack".

"It's something to do with the way the adults here relate to children. It's in the life blood of the school, in the very fabric of the way the school runs. New kids often won't look teachers in the eye, and gradually it changes. Children here have the power to bring issues up, a right to be heard, a right to influence through the self-governing system."

The school's Head, Colin Reid, says: "All schools say they aim to treat the child as an individual, but they aren't prepared to accept the consequences of it."

Encouraging high self-esteem is about far more than drilling a child to look in a mirror and say "I love myself". Much seems to hinge on the quality and extent of a web of mutually respectful relationships that hold both school and child together, and the clarity of identity of both.

Few children will have sound self-esteem without some self-knowledge, so schools need to encourage every pupil to have a clear, positive and realistic sense of who they are and what they can do. Self-worth and self-belief flourish when children feel competent and effective, when adults respect them and value them as a source of authority about themselves and when they give them hope in their future. Without self-esteem, people feel hopeless and powerless. Supportive and respectful relationships with teachers are central to encouraging self-esteem, as is quality classroom practice, and clear and high expectations for work and behaviour.

Most schools are a long way from delivering all this; they have, instead, been mesmerised by targets and results. They are forced by politicians into becoming "technical systems concerned with inputs and outputs", in the view of Helen Johnson, Principal Lecturer in Educational Management at the University of Surrey. "Children are now a commodity of the state - it's the factory model par excellence."

Getting the most out of children takes both time - the one thing teachers no longer have - and patience, which is disappearing fast. If the Government is serious about developing children's selfesteem and promoting mental health, there must be a climate change to re-energise teachers and permit the whole school to focus on the whole child. It may be raining A-stars for some, but the more significant result is that some children are in danger of being swept away.