50% of children in the East Anglia often feel stressed, says study
These findings come after 13,000 pupils in the East aged between 6 to 18 years old were surveyed by Edurio
Last updated 30th Nov 2021
50% of children in East Anglia often feel stressed and over a quarter admitt to frequently feeling lonely.
That's according to latest research from Eduiro, a survey provider for schools who surveyed 13,000 pupils aged between 6 to 18 years old in the East of England.
They found that East Anglia's figures were the worst out of any region in the country.
Iona Jackson is head of research at Edurio and co-author of the report.
She told us that while the pandemic's had an impact its not the only cause for these figures:
"With the loneliness issue the pandemic certainly hasn't helped. With the other areas like stress and over-working, these issues came before the pandemic and will out last it. One of the big findings of the report were that students in a position of feeling sad or worried are more likely to speak to their peers than to they are to their teachers",
She went on to say that changing perceptions is key:
"One of the things that came out in the comments were that pupils feel that their teachers were just there to teach. They are a maths teacher and they are there just to teach maths. There's perhaps work to be done to remind pupils that teachers can have conversations that sit outside of the perimetries of what their subject".
Anna Menzel is now a first year student at the University of East Anglia.
She says students should be taught how to help their friends better:
"If you are stressed anyway and then you're getting conversations from your friends about being stressed that doesn't help. I think there is a certain amount of counselling that we could have as students so we can have conversations with our peers that helps them".
She says a bit of fine-tuning could work wonders:
"Schools have so many things in place that are fantastic, but I also think that there is a bit of polishing that can be done so that the things that are already in place already, are made better".