The issue was on the agenda at a Children in Scotland seminar yesterday (Thursday) to coincide with the final stages of consultation on the Scottish Executive’s “national framework for the prevention of suicide and deliberate self-harm”.

Speaking to The TES Scotland, Gwynedd Lloyd, senior lecturer in Edinburgh University’s education faculty, said: “The prevention of suicide and self-harm is straightforward. It’s not about new initiatives. It’s about schools paying much more attention to children as human beings than they are doing at the moment.”

Professor Stephen Platt of Edinburgh University’s research unit in health and behavioural change, one of the authors of the national framework, said:

“Addressing the emotional well-being of children should be at the centre of the curriculum rather than at the periphery, as it is at the moment.”

Professor Platt added: “To manage the world we live in, we need a level of emotional maturity. There is a view that schools are not up to the challenge of helping pupils develop this maturity, that they can equip them with literacy and numeracy skills but not with a sufficient measure of emotional literacy. Surely it should be a question of giving children a rounded education?”

Their comments come in the light of figures released by the Scottish Association of Mental Health (SAMH) which suggest that 20 per cent of pre-school children have emotional problems, of which 70 per cent are severely affected. Seven per cent of 10 and 11-year-olds may have a psychiatric disorder - a rate that doubles in inner city areas.

The teen years are particularly problematic. Up to 20 per cent of 14 to 15-year-olds are likely to have a significant mental health problem. While the symptoms of manic depression, schizophrenia and eating disorders often first appear in young people aged 15 and up, self-harming behaviour could emerge as young as 12, Professor Platt said.

Ms Lloyd said pupils should have someone to speak to if in difficulty. “This could be a specialist teacher. But equally well it could be a subject teacher - one a pupil relates to. All teachers should be willing to see that as part of their job.”

Guidance teachers also have a role but there are too few of them and their roles are too diverse, Ms Lloyd felt.

Alex Edwardson, president of the Scottish Guidance Association and principal teacher of guidance at Dumbarton Academy, said: “Lots of youngsters who might be depressed can go unnoticed in classrooms. They are never the naughty ones. They are the ones who never attract attention. There may be absences but it is difficult to know what’s going on. If there is a crisis you react to it. You wonder how you missed it and you blame yourself.”

In its proposals, the Executive urges schools to promote “emotional literacy and resilience”. There should be training and support for staff to bring this about.