To think that school pupils should *not* have compulsory lessons in Body Image and Self Esteem.

[somebloke123]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18260133

Of course, schools should be on the lookout for pupils with such problems and support them as far as possible.

But compulsory lessons? With national guidelines and monitored by OFSTED???

It seem that these MPs once they get into parliament and get put on a committee imagine thmselves in front of some gigantic console where they twiddle a few knobs which are attached via a set of levers to the wider society. By deciding on the correct settings they think they can determine the way society is.

It doesn't work like that.

OFFS! When they can get teaching English and maths right and the country's children are all coming out of school able to read, write, add up and string a sentence together, then there will be time to concentrate on other issues.

Well done Parliament! Your adverts for home education, independent schooling get better by the day.

X posted with you, amicissimma. I agree with you entirely although you put it so much more articulately! :)

yanbu

school should butt out of this sort of thing.

waste of time!

YANBU. If someone is self-conscious about the way they look, I can't imagine anything worse than a class on body-image. Yes by all means raise children's confidence in the usual ways by identifying strengths and encouraging them to achieve their potential. Yes, general messages about the danger of judging books by covers. But not body-image per se. Just sounds wrong.

"When they can get teaching English and maths right and the country's children are all coming out of school able to read, write, add up and string a sentence together, then there will be time to concentrate on other issues."

No, no, no.

The relentless focus on literacy and numeracy at the expense of everything else that makes reading and writing a doing sums worthwhile is helping nobody.

There are good reasons not to keep stapling public policy goals into compulsory school subjects, but even more time obsessing over the 3 Rs while children die of boredom is not one of them.

To be perfectly honest, I think it should be done - but not necessarily be about self image but about how the media represents a distorted picture of the world in general, and then use body image as a talking point. That could include saying that the media are trying to flog you beauty products, saying that celebs have been airbrushed or had surgery etc etc.

Media studies gets panned as a subject. However it has very relevant and important lessons that should be taught to all kids due to the fact of just how bombarded we are by various media sources. Body image is one subject it is important to. But so is food advertising, politics and many, many other subjects and this isn't covered by any other subject other than media studies. We are not teaching kids how to disconstruct what they are seeing and in this day and age its as important, as English. Its an essential skill connected with communication.

Anything that encourages kids to question what they see and hear and its value and why people are trying to influence them is good.

Maybe it would be better to direct the funding to counselling and other services for young people who actually have eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder etc?

I get that prevention is better than cure, but I'm not confident that this will really do much good in practice, and agree with others that the time and effort might be better spent on making sure state school pupils get a good academic education.