RESOURCE HUB

Statistics and Information

Studies

GEN Z Rethinking Culture is the result of a survey commissioned by Youth for Christ of 1001 young people on the topics of Culture, Influence, Priorities and Religion and Faith. The aim was to learn more about this generation and ultimately help to inform ways to reach and engage them.

Climate change has been chosen as the Children's Word of the Year following a survey by Oxford University Press of more than 5,000 children across the UK. In total, a third of children (33%) said climate change was their word of the year for 2023, the word war came second (31%) and coronation came third (24%)

Smartphones, Social Media & Online Safety

The Educational Policy Institute have publised a report into Social Media and Children's Mental Health. They outline the benefits, risks and policy implications.

Schools in England have been given new guidance intended to stop the use of mobile phones during the school day. The government said the move was part of a plan to "minimise disruption and improve behaviour in classrooms". It added that many schools had already banned phones and the change would ensure a consistent approach.

In a survey of 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds, young people were asked about various aspects of life - including mental health and their smartphone habits. The findings of the suggest: 23% agree that smartphones should be banned for under-16s; 35% think social media should be banned for under-16s; 50% say not having their smartphone on them makes them feel anxious (last year, this figure was slightly higher: 56%); 74% said they would not consider swapping their smartphones for a basic device.

A recent poll suggests more teenagers are messaging people online they don’t know. This year (2024), 37% of teenagers said they had, up 6% on last year.

Almost a quarter of five-to-seven-year-olds now own a smartphone, and three-quarters use a tablet computer, an Ofcom study states. Social media use has also risen among these children, with 38% now said to be using social media platforms, according to the communications regulator (ITV, April 2024).

As part of a five-day digital detox, 10 Salford teenagers swapped their devices for basic phones that can only make calls and send texts. The detox is part of a BBC project looking at young people’s smartphone habits. For some of the teens, giving up their smartphone was really difficult and caused stress. Some students taking part in the experiment acknowledge a fear of missing out, but most say they are surprised at how liberating they are finding the experience. Some are getting better sleep, they say, while others feel they have been more productive without their phones.

Children as young as seven are using social media regularly. Yet the minimum age to use most social media is 13. Responses from children aged 7 to 11 suggested that almost half used social media a few times a week or every day. It was also found that 43% of 7-8 year-olds had a smart phone.

In their report Children sending and receiving sexual messages, the NSPCC states: "Of the primary school children surveyed, 1 in 25 had been sent or shown a naked or semi-naked image by an adult. Of the secondary school children surveyed, 1 in every 20 had been sent or shown a naked or semi-naked image by an adult."

One in three children lie about their age to access adult content on social media, according to research commissioned by the regulator, Ofcom. The Ofcom-commissioned research found 32% of children have an account intended for adults, while 47% of children aged eight to 15 have a user age of 16 and over. And 60% of children under the age of 13 who use social media accounts have their own profiles, despite not being old enough.

Research carried out by UK Safer Internet Centre surveyed 2000 eight to 17 year olds about their feelings and attitudes towards social media. 68% said that chatting to their friends online actually cheers them up; 88% also said that when a friend was feeling sad or upset they would use social media to send a supportive message. Equally, the report still indicates that 56% experienced sadness and 52% felt anger.

Research carried out by online safety organisation ‘Internet Matters’ has found that although nearly 7 out of 10 children aged 11-16 think parental controls are a good idea, 6 out of 10 parents don’t set them.

Mental Health

How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation, Published 2024)

Since 2010...

The popularisation of smartphones and 24-hour internet access has led to 46% of teens to be online 'almost constantly'.
Anxiety diagnoses among 18–25-year-olds have increased by 92%.
Nearly 40% of teenage girls in the UK who spend over 5 hours on social media per day score as clinically depressed.
What has changed? Parents tend to over-supervise every aspect of their children’s lives offline, depriving them of the experiences and skills they need to develop greater resilience. Meanwhile, smartphones encourage screen-based living in place of real-time, face to face interactions. Selfie culture weakens confidence as teens compare themselves to others, while social media reduces connection to 'likes' alone.

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1 in 6 children aged five to 16 were identified as having a probable mental health problem in July 2020 (Young Minds).

Nearly 500,000 antidepressant prescriptions are being given out to children each year. Experts said the figures revealed the scale of the mental health crisis among the young, with NHS services struggling to cope (Times March 2024).

It is said that, on average, three children in every classroom have a diagnosable mental health issue. One in five children will experience a mental health difficulty at least once in their first 11 years, and many adults with lifetime mental health issues can trace the symptoms back to childhood. This is a real source of concern for anyone working in a school.

15 year olds in the UK are amongst the unhappiest in the world, with the main reason being anxiety about academic performance and bullying. Despite the worry statistic, when the young people were asked how they felt about life, the average score for life satisfaction was 6.98, while 28 per cent of those questioned said they were very satisfied with their lives.

An estimated 46,300 dependent children (aged 0-17) are bereaved of a parent each year. That’s 127 children newly bereaved each day. 1 in 29 five to sixteen year-olds has been bereaved of a parent or sibling - that's a child in every average class. (Child Bereavement UK).

The Annual Bullying Survey 2020 documents the true extent and nature of bullying behaviours from the real and often unheard voices of the young people who experience it. The report highlights that bullying as a whole has increased by 25% year-on-year. When asked broadly about their mental health, 42% of young people said that they have battled with anxiety, 25% with depression and 21% with suicidal thoughts. School pressures, exams, body image, feelings of loneliness and bereavement were referenced as the leading contributors to poor mental health.

74% of teachers believe poor mental health support is affecting children’s ability to learn (Young Minds 2022).

In a survey of 2,000 young people aged 13-18, nearly half (46%) said they were worried about knife crime in their local area and 31% in their school. The survey also asked teens about their mental health and wellbeing, online safety and mobile phone use, with 23% agreeing that smartphones should be banned for under 16s. More than a third said social media should be banned for under 16s.

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There are 76,000 school children in Sheffield. In the Sheffield Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Strategy (2019):

It was estimated that 7000 5-15 year olds in Sheffield have a clinically recognisable mental health disorder.
15,000 Sheffield children and young people live with a parent with a mental health disorder.
40% of Sheffield children experience insecure attachment which is a serious risk factor for poor mental health.
50% of mental health illnesses are established by the age of 14 and 40% of young people experience at least one mental health disorder by the age of 16. the number of children presenting to the NHS for support with mental and emotional needs is increasing year on year.

Schools & Education

More children and young people (14.3%) were unhappy with school than with the nine other areas of life they were asked about (The Good Childhood Report - Children's Society Report 2024).

Pupil behaviour is getting worse in schools in England. Nearly one in five teachers in England has been hit by a pupil this year, according to a survey commissioned by the BBC. Spitting, swearing and chair-throwing were among the things happening often, with teachers reporting worsening violence and abuse from pupils since the Covid pandemic (BBC, March 2024).

School exclusions and suspensions reach record high. The number of pupils permanently excluded jumped 44% last year to 9,400 whilst there were 787,000 occasions of temporary removal, as pupil behaviour continues to deteriorate in the wake of the pandemic, new figures show. (The Telegraph, July 2024).

Women in their 30s are, numerically, the biggest single group leaving teaching. More than 9,000 of them left teaching in England 2022-23, compared with just over 3,400 men of a similar age. In a report called Missing Mothers, researchers urge more family-friendly policies to halt the exodus (BBC, July 2024).

In the 2022-23 academic year, DfE figures suggest 22.3% of pupils in England were persistently absent - 17.2% in primary schools and 28.3% in secondary schools - roughly double pre-pandemic levels. The report included a poll of 1,200 parents suggesting around one in four say the pandemic has shown it is not essential for children to attend school every day. (BBC, January 2024).

Hundreds of thousands of pupils in England and Wales are being educated by low-paid teaching assistants (TAs) covering lessons for teachers who are off sick or have quit, according to new research. The survey of almost 6,000 TAs found two in five (39%) were covering classes for regular teachers for at least five hours a week – roughly the equivalent of one school day a week or half a term’s cover over a school year – while 15% said they were expected to teach entire classes for at least 11 hours a week (Guardian, April 2024).

Some pupils are facing a "lost decade" of progress in schools in England if action is not taken, MPs have warned. Their report expressed alarm that it could take 10 years for the gap between disadvantaged children and others to narrow to what it was before Covid.

A study found 72% of teachers surveyed believe students transitioning from Year 6 to Year 7 will struggle more with their speech and language in comparison to year groups who started secondary school before the coronavirus pandemic. (Speech and Language UK 2022).

Education is the most injury-prone sector in the UK, and Secondary School teachers in particular are three times more likely to be physically attacked at work than the average UK employee, according to the Labour Force Survey. From 2009-10 to 2015-16 there were on average 8,000 attacks on teachers in schools every year.
A few statistics to get you thinking: 50% of all children and young people in our country have been bullied at some point during their school lives. 25% have been bullied in the last year. 11% are bullied on an almost daily basis. That’s nearly 150,000 children and young people who dread going to school every single day of their lives, for fear of what awaits them. Of those bullied daily, 27% feel constantly ill, 31% have self harmed and 44% have developed depression. From Christians in Education weekly post 2017.

Nearly 1 in 4 girls have self-harmed.

More than 40 schools have sought exemptions in the past 18 months (April 2017) from the legal requirement to provide a daily act of Christian worship, with many choosing ‘non-faith’ or ‘multi-faith’ alternatives for the first time. A total of 46 schools since 2015 have asked to opt out from a daily act of worship that is ‘wholly or mainly’ of a Christian character, a rule that has been in place since 1944.

Thousands of state schools across England are segregated along ethnic or social grounds, according to research. More than a quarter of primary and four in 10 secondary schools are ethnically divided, the social integration charity, The Challenge, found. It says almost a third of primary and a quarter of secondary schools are segregated along socio-economic lines.

Nearly two million school-aged children in the UK are struggling with talking and understanding words in the aftermath of Covid, a charity has found. The study from Speech and Language UK found that at least 1.7 million children were struggling with verbal communication which risked impacting their education. They found 72% of teachers surveyed believe students transitioning from Year 6 to Year 7 will struggle more with their speech and language in comparison to year groups who started secondary school before the coronavirus pandemic.

Faith

95% of children and young people do not have regular contact with a church.
(Peter Brierley, UK Church Statistics 2, 2010–2020, Tonbridge: ADBC Publishers, 2014).

New research commissioned by Christian youth organisation Hope Revolution Partnership suggests that levels of Christianity were much higher among young people than previously thought. The figures show that more than one in five (21%) of people between the ages of 11 and 18 describe themselves as active followers of Jesus, and 13% say they are practising Christians who attend church. Around 13% of teenagers said that they decided to become a Christian after a visit to a church or cathedral, according to the figures.

Sexual Assault

Children now ‘biggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against children’. 'The report from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said the offending by adults against children was usually more serious, but said they were alarmed by the growth of sexual offending by those aged 17 or under... In 2022 a total of 107,000 reports were made to police in England and Wales alleging sexual offences against children, ranging from rapes and, in a quarter of cases, to the making and sharing of indecent images. The NPCC said 52% of alleged offenders were children, compared with around one third a decade ago.' (Guardian January 2024)

14 year-old girls report rape to police more than any other age group (Telegraph September 2024).

1 in 5 children who have sent sexts, say they were ‘pressured or blackmailed’.

A "staggering" 1,316 offences were recorded in the first six months of a new child grooming law being introduced last year in England and Wales. Of the cases recorded, the youngest victim was a seven-year-old girl, although girls aged between 12 and 15 were the most likely to be targeted by predators. Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat were the most common sites used by offenders, making up 63% of all incidents.

Figures reveal that "almost 30,000 reports of children sexually assaulting other youngsters, including 2,625 alleged attacks on school premises, have been made to police in the last four years".

Family Life

Schools are now the biggest source of charitable food for struggling families as they are increasingly forced to step in to help. Researchers found there are 4,000 school-based foodbanks in primary and secondary schools across England, which equates to one in every five (BBC, April 2023).

Britain has some of the most unstable families in the developed world, a new study has found. Figures released by the Marriage Foundation show that the majority of British children born to co-habiting couples will see their parents break up, while a third of British 12-year-olds have seen their married parents separate.

More than 26,000 children experienced domestic abuse in Sheffield last year, according to a new report (BBC 2023).

Every hour five families are made homeless.

400,000 children in the UK do not have a bed of their own to sleep in.

By age 4, children living in poverty hear 30 million fewer words than children in higher income households, according to researchers.

There are about 87,000 children in care in the UK, and every year about 5,500 are adopted (2017).

Pornography

Children as young as nine have been exposed to pornography and a quarter of 16-21-year-olds first saw pornography on the internet while still at primary school. Of the 18-21-year-olds in the study, 79% had seen pornography involving sexual violence as children.

By the age of 13, 50% of children have been exposed to pornography.

In a nationally representative survey of more than 1,000 16-21-year-olds, 38% had found pornographic content accidentally.

Nearly 40% of all teenagers have posted or sent sexually suggestive messages, but this practice is more common among boys than girls.

One in three children lie about their age to access adult content on social media, according to research commissioned by the regulator, Ofcom. The Ofcom-commissioned research found 32% of children have an account intended for adults, while 47% of children aged eight to 15 have a user age of 16 and over. And 60% of children under the age of 13 who use social media accounts have their own profiles, despite not being old enough.

Gambling

Problem gambling rates are higher among young gamblers than among adult gamblers. 450,000 children gamble every week.

It is estimated that 2% of 11-15 year-olds are problem gamblers.

The overall rate of gambling among 11-15 year olds is around 16%. This figure compares to 5% of 11-15 year olds who have smoked and 8% who have drunk alcohol in the last week, while 6% have taken drugs in the last month.

Internet gambling, while technically restricted to over 18s, means that some children are able to gamble by lying about their age.

Alcohol and Drugs

Children in England are the most likely to have ever drunk alcohol compared with youngsters in all the other countries surveyed. In one of the largest studies of its kind, the World Health Organisation (WHO) examined data from 280,000 children aged 11, 13 and 15 from 44 countries who were asked about their use of cigarettes, vapes and alcohol. At the age of 11, England tops the global chart, with 34% of girls and 35% of boys saying they have drunk alcohol. Some 30% of girls aged 15 and 17% of boys aged 15 in England have vaped in the previous 30 days. Some 55% of girls and 56% of boys in England from higher income families say they have drunk alcohol in their lifetime. The figures for lower income households are 50% of girls and 39% of boys. (The Independent, April 2024).

According to NHS Digital, one in five 15-year-olds vaped in 2021; the current figure is expected to be higher. Many parents of teens who vape feel the official figures are too low, with some estimating that as many as 70% or even 90% of children in a school year vape.

NHS Digital figures suggest one in 10 children aged 11-15 had drunk alcohol in the previous week, and nearly a quarter of 15-year-olds describing themselves as having recently been "drunk".

Children as young as nine are being arrested for dealing drugs. Over 5,000 children have been arrested for drug offences over the last four years in the UK.

Sheffield

There are 76,000 school children in Sheffield:

It estimated that 7000 5-15 year olds in Sheffield have a clinical recognisable mental health disorder.

15,000 Sheffield children and young people live with a parent with a mental health disorder.

40% of Sheffield children experience insecure attachment which is a serious risk factor for poor mental health.

75% of mental health illnesses are established by the age of 14 and the number of children presenting to the NHS for support with mental and emotional needs is increasing year on year.

Sheffield is fairing particularly badly with fixed term exclusions running at almost triple the national average and permanent exclusions are also high.

With cut backs in statutory services and increased referrals to social care and CAMHS, the thresholds for support have become higher.

More than 26,000 children experienced domestic abuse in Sheffield last year, according to a new report (BBC 2023).

Teachers

The teaching workforce only grew by 259 full-time equivalent teachers in the year to November 2023, compared to a 2,844 rise the year before. 44,002 teachers joined the workforce, down 3,900 on the previous year. The number of newly-qualified entrants is the lowest since current records began in 2010 – 17,462 in 2023-24 compared to highs of 26,496 in 2015-16.

43,500 teachers left the profession in England in 2023 (one in ten of all qualified teachers), The Conversation June 2024.

The proportion of state-school teachers leaving the sector is at its highest since 2010 - 39,971 (8.8%) left in 2022-23, not including those who died or retired. The number of empty teaching posts in England has more than doubled in the past three years, the latest official figures reveal. The number of teachers has risen - but so has the number leaving. And the number of vacancies per 1,000 teachers has risen from two to six.

The percentage of new teachers leaving a year after qualifying has dropped slightly to 11.3 per cent, compared to 12.8 per cent in 2021. This is still below 13.6 in 2010. But nearly a third of teachers (32.5 per cent) leave the profession within five years. This compares to 29.2 in 2010.

Pupil-to-teacher ratios in special schools and pupil referral units continued to rise, hitting a high of 6.5 pupils to one teacher compared to a low of 5.4 a decade ago. In secondary schools, the ratio has remained static at 16.8, the highest level on record. Ratios fluctuate at nursery and primary schools, sitting at 20.8 pupils for each teacher this year compared to 20.5 10 years ago. They peaked at 20.9 between 2017-18 and 2019-20.