Health and wellbeing in schools

We want all children and young people to be able to learn about health and wellbeing to ensure they acquire skills to live healthy, happy lives.

Health and wellbeing isn't a single subject or class, but is organised into six curricular areas:

mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing
planning for choices and changes
physical education
physical activity and sport
food and health
substance misuse
relationships, sexual health and parenthood

Health and wellbeing is also about ensuring that pupils are able to make the most of their educational opportunities regardless of their background or financial circumstances and through promotion of attendance at school.

We have provided a range of resources to ensure children feel happy, safe, included and respected in their learning environment. These resources cover bullying, attendance and school exclusions.

Relationships and behaviours in schools

Improving positive relationships and behaviour is central to the successful delivery of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and the implementation of Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC).

Behaviour in Scottish schools research helps inform our approach. The Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS) consider the actions which should be taken to address any concerns raised. The latest Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (2023) survey explored school staffs’ experiences in mainstream schools.

Action to address concerns about relationships and behaviour is being led by the Education Secretary. In August 2024, we published the Relationships and behaviour in schools: national action plan 2024 to 2027. This plan sets out the actions to be taken to respond to the findings of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research 2023.

The first annual progress report covers actions undertaken during phase 1 of the plan, between November 2023 and March 2025. The second annual progress report covers actions undertaken during phase 2 of the plan, between April 2025 and March 2026.

Key actions taken since November 2023 include the publication of a range of guidance to respond to ongoing and emergent concerns:

Work to update our national guidance on exclusions Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: a positive to preventing and managing school exclusions is currently underway, supported by a working group.

We are also have a short life working group working to develop a set of principles to underpin recording and monitoring and support consistency in approach and process across local authorities and schools.

Attendance

Our national guidance on attendance Included, Engaged and Involved Part 1: Improving Attendance in Scotland’s schools was updated in March 2026. This guidance reaffirms the importance of engaging and supporting children, young people and their families to secure regular school attendance.

Anti-bullying

Our anti-bullying guidance Respect for all: the national approach to anti-bullying for Scotland's children and young people is for everyone working with children and young people and provides a holistic approach to anti-bullying. The guidance also sets out advice on online bullying as well as a consistent and uniform approach to recording and monitoring of bullying incidents.

Racism and racist incidents

Our Whole School Approach to Racism and Racist Incidents guidance is focussed on supporting schools and school staff to improve understanding of racism and to ensure that these issues are properly identified and addressed. The whole school approach guidance incorporates the Addressing Racism and Racist Incidents interim guidance, published in June 2025, which focused on addressing racist behaviour between children and young people in schools. The whole school approach additionally provides guidance on creating a whole school anti-racist environment and ethos; racist incidents experienced by school staff; and racist incidents experienced by parents, carers, and families in a school setting.

The guidance was developed by the racism and racist incidents sub-group of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme.

LGBTI inclusive education

Work on LGBT inclusive education is being taken forward by the LGBT Inclusive Education Implementation Group, formed to facilitate implementation of the recommendations of the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group which were accepted by Scottish Ministers in November 2018.

On 23 September 2021, we launched the first phase of LGBT Inclusive Education, consisting of:

a basic awareness e-learning course on LGBT inclusive education for practitioners
a toolkit of LGBT inclusive education teaching resources
a centralised website hosting resources, training and other relevant information

The implementation group will deliver as many of the remaining recommendations as they can, which consist of:

an additional professional learning module on LGBT inclusion in curricular content
additional suites of LGBT inclusive teaching resources
working collaboratively with Education Scotland to review and develop new LGBT inclusive education related benchmarks
working with the Scottish Qualifications Authority to publish new LGBT inclusive course content

We published revised guidance for education authorities and schools on supporting transgender pupils in schools in September 2025.

This is non-statutory guidance for education authorities and schools on legislation, policy and practice to inform their approaches to supporting transgender young people. This guidance has been subject to equality and child rights and wellbeing impact assessments and fully aligns with the Equality Act 2010 and other legislation.

Mental health support

School counselling

The 2018/19 Programme for Government included a commitment to invest in access to school counselling services across education. Access to counselling support through secondary schools is now in place across Scotland. We continue to support our local authority partners with £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services.

The Scottish Government and local authority leaders reached a joint agreement on the distribution of funding and a set of aims and principles for the delivery of the commitment.

We published guidance on access to counselling in secondary schools in March 2020.

To streamline our approach to reporting, we have moved from six-monthly to annual reports from 2024 to 2025 onwards.

You can access previous summary reports at the gov.scot archive.

Mental health education

Children and young people to learn about mental wellbeing as part of health and wellbeing in Curriculum for Excellence. Mental health education is usually delivered through Personal and Social Education (PSE) classes and delivery is informed by a set of Health and Wellbeing Experiences and Outcomes.

The Health and Wellbeing Experiences and Outcomes aim to ensure that children and young people understand the importance of mental wellbeing and that this can be fostered and strengthened through personal coping skills and positive relationships. Children and young people will learn that it is not always possible to enjoy good mental health and that if this happens there is support available.

Mental Health in Schools Working Group

A mental health in schools working group was set up to support our ongoing commitment to supporting positive mental health in children and young people in school.

The group developed an online professional learning resource that provides essential learning required to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Although aimed at school staff, the resource is free and available to anyone who wishes to access it at: CYPMH – Professional Learning Resource.

The group also published a Whole School Approach Framework (August 2021) which provides practical measures that a school and a local authority can use to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

Work is currently underway to update these documents to reflect more current knowledge and policy context.

These approaches are aligned with our approach to supporting children and young people’s mental health, including the provision of £16m per year to support the provision of counselling through schools.

Gender based violence

Our framework for schools on preventing and responding to gender-based violence provides guidance on how schools can address the underlying causes of gender-based violence, particularly gender inequality, and ensure appropriate action is taken in response to specific incidents.

The framework was developed by the Gender Based Violence in Schools Working Group, which was jointly chaired by Scottish Government, Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance.

Relationships, sexual health and parenthood

Revised guidance for teachers on the delivery of relationships, sexual health and parenthood education clearly states how important it is that this education addresses consent and healthy relationships including diversity and reflects the issues facing children and young people in a modern society.

Mobile phones

We published mobile phones: guidance for Scotland's schools in August 2024. This guidance provides schools and local authorities with advice on the development and updating of local policies relating to the use of mobile phones in schools.

Substance use

Children and young people learn about a variety of substances including alcohol, medicines, drugs, tobacco and solvents as part of Curriculum for Excellence. They will explore the impact risk taking behaviour has on life choices and health.

Guidance on responding to substance use (including vapes and other nicotine products) in schools was published in March 2026 to support education authorities and schools to develop clear, fair and proportionate local policies for preventing and responding to substance use

Physical education

We are committed to schools delivering at least two hours of PE per week for all pupils in primary school, and at least two 50 minute periods of PE for all pupils between Secondary 1 and Secondary 4. See information on how this target is met.

Under the provisions of Curriculum for Excellence, schools have the flexibility to decide upon the content of their PE lessons at the local level, taking into account the local needs and circumstances of their pupils.

Food and health

As part of health promotion, schools are required to provide food which meets strict nutritional standards, given the major benefits these have for pupils' current and future health. The standards call for a variety of dishes available so pupils learn about making healthy choices about what they eat.

We consulted on making school food healthier, following recommendations by an independent group in 2018 and a majority of responses to this consultation agreed with the proposed nutritional standards set out in the independent working group’s report. We also published a report on the responses we received to our consultation. The new regulations came into effect on 8 April 2021.

We published refreshed guidance on healthy eating in schools to accompany the new regulations.

Financial support for learning

Free school meals

Free school meals are available to all pupils in the first five years of primary school at all publicly funded schools. Find out more: free school meals.

School clothing grants

School clothing grants are paid directly by local authorities to low income families to help with the cost of buying a school uniform. Find out more: school clothing grants.

Information