The pioneering technique that's helping to combat depression in the classroom

Tom Bagley seems a cheerful enough lad. Like most children on the cusp of puberty, he's prone to the odd mood, and anxieties about homework or peer pressure. But, if he submitted to analysis, it's unlikely that he'd be diagnosed as anything other than a profoundly normal 12-year-old.

"Everyone gets depressed sometimes, but I'm not an unhappy person," he says chirpily. "What gets me most upset is when someone thinks they're better than me. I've never been bullied, though, and I don't worry about things like tests. I believe you can only do your best in life."

This weekend, three of his teachers at Adeyfield School, Hemel Hempstead, will fly with some 80 other professionals to the University of Pennsylvania for a 10-day crash course in so-called resiliency training – the use of mind-over-matter psychological techniques to help children (and their parents) weather life's disappointments and attain inner peace.

The initiative, approved by the Department for Education and Skills, is backed by the London-based think-tank the Young Foundation, the Improvement and Development Agency, and the London School of Economics. It will see resiliency lessons incorporated into the PSHE syllabus at 21 secondary schools in Hertfordshire, Manchester, and South Tyneside for a three-year trial period, starting this autumn. If it is deemed a success by ministers, the programme could be rolled out nationwide.

The hope is that, by teaching children how to think optimistically, empathise with others, and develop coping strategies to deal with day-to-day setbacks, schools can tackle the epidemic of depression afflicting modern British youth. According to recent studies, 2 per cent of children aged 11 to 15, and one in 10 16 to 24-year-olds, suffer from major depressive disorders at any one time. Milder forms of anxiety affect 3 per cent of five to 15-year-olds and one in seven young adults.

Such trends were highlighted earlier this year in a "report card" compiled by Unicef, focusing on the wellbeing of children in 21 developed economies. In it, the UK came bottom of the global league – behind former Eastern bloc countries such as Hungary and Poland. Child poverty, family troubles and the "dog eat dog" mentality prevalent in certain aspects of modern British life were blamed for its score.

But can children today really be more stressed out than they were, say, 20 or even 50 years ago? And, if so, how can we teach them to be happy?

Adeyfield's head teacher, Peter Hepburn, is in no doubt that today's schoolchildren face more pressures than their forebears. "There's all the pressure of school testing, and the media and celebrity are causing anxiety about what children look like and what they wear," he says.

"Then there are other material issues in Hertfordshire: your parents need two incomes to bring you up comfortably."

His observations chime with warnings by the Labour peer Lord Layard, the director of the Well-Being Programme at the LSE's Centre for Economic Performance, and the Government's so-called happiness tsar. Delivering the annual Ashby Lecture at Cambridge University in May, he argued that a climate of individualism in Britain and America was preventing children achieving happiness. Calling for the Pennsylvania approach to be applied across the whole state sector, he said: "I am talking about something bigger than a programme. I am talking about the reversal of a major cultural trend towards increased consumerism, increased inter-personal competition, and increased interest in celebrity and money."

Yet, even if we accept these conclusions, what can those about to embark on their taxpayer-funded trip to America expect to learn in 10 days that years of dogged graft at the chalk-face hasn't taught them?

The Penn Resiliency Project (PRP) – to coin its full title – is the brainchild of a team of academics led by Professor Martin Seligman, the man widely recognised as the founder of Positive Psychology. Credited with successfully training several hundred professionals over the past 10 years in America, China and Australia, this uses a mix of lectures, role-play and games to show teachers how to apply conceptual ideas drawn from social and cognitive theory in their classrooms and in the real world.

One activity involves students being encouraged to address pessimistic thoughts after listening to a fictional story about two detectives, Sherlock Holmes and Merlock Worms. In it, Holmes is portrayed as an optimist, who believes a case can be solved through logical deduction involving a range of possibilities. Worms, in contrast, is a pessimist, as he only identifies one potential suspect and goes with his initial prejudices – regardless of other evidence that is thrown up.

On paper, PRP's track record is impressive. In 11 evaluations of its grassroots impact carried out over the past decade, teenage depression rates were found to have been cut by half, and bad behaviour by a third. Geoff Mulgan, the director of the Young Foundation, says of it: "Over the last few years there has been a huge amount of emphasis on exams, and a huge amount of money going into school buildings, but almost no emphasis on children's wellbeing. We're not claiming this is a magic solution, but Penn is one of the most verified projects of its kind."

Yet some remain unconvinced. Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, says: "Schools should concentrate on teaching youngsters English, maths and science, rather than interfering with their psychological state. These daft schemes are taking money away which should be going directly to schools to spend as they think fit."

By giving resiliency lessons to all year-seven pupils, he argues, schools risk assuming that everyone has emotional problems. In some cases, he continues, this wholesale approach might even prove self-defeating by promoting the very symptoms that it is trying to alleviate.

But Seaton's views are roundly dismissed by John Harris, who is the director of children, schools and families for Hertfordshire County Council. So, too, is the familiar critics' description of PRP classes as "happiness lessons".

"That's an extremely unfortunate misrepresentation," Harris insists. "It's about developing emotional intelligence." He adds that the money being used to fund his council's £180,000 investment in PRP training derives from its mental-health grant, not its education budget. He says: "The beneficiary cost is £60 a head. We're aiming to help 3,000 pupils over three years, and the 32 people taking part can train others. It isn't a huge investment when you consider a one-year therapeutic placement for one person could cost the same."

Someone else who has no time for nay-sayers – nor any problem with the term "happiness lessons" – is Anthony Seldon, the headmaster of Wellington College, who introduced them last year at his £8,000-a-term public school. Pupils are now taught the importance of various aspects of psychological and physical wellbeing, ranging from how to foster " productive relationships" through meditation and relaxation techniques to a respect for the natural environment.

"If you're running a school that's calm and steady and based on good psychological principles, children will perform better than if it's run on a fiercely competitive basis," asserts Dr Seldon. "Cynics are sad people – sad and ignorant. They're flat-Earthers. I feel compassion for them and the people they work with. They could be doing things so much better. They need to read the research and become wiser. There's no debate."

Though the resiliency project is the first pilot of its kind to be attempted in Britain's state sector, a handful of schools have already adopted their own wellbeing agendas.

West Kidlington Primary School in Oxfordshire has a curriculum framed around 22 "values" – ranging from the mainstream ("respect") to the obscure ("simplicity"). Critics may scoff, but one outcome of this decade-old approach has been three Ofsted reports praising the school for outstanding pupil behaviour. "It's a peaceful place," says its head teacher, Eugene Symonds. "The pupils aren't angels – they tear around and have fun – but when you need them to be focused, they are."

So is the school consciously teaching its children to be happy?

"Unquestionably," replies Symonds. "That's one of our values. But the other thing that we teach is courage – the fact that, in life, sometimes you have to just roll up your sleeves and get on with things."

The Resiliency Project

Professor Martin Seligman launched the Penn Resiliency Project (PRP) 15 years ago, and started training teachers five years later.

The project has been evaluated in controlled studies in the USA, Australia and China involving 2,000 eight- to 15-year-olds.

Teachers are trained in intensive 10-day courses at the Positive Psychology Center of the University of Pennsylvania (above) . Resiliency classes are designed to be delivered to 15 11-year-olds over 18 hours.

PRP training activities include controlled breathing, muscle relaxation, stories and games.

In the three years following PRP tuition, all but one school saw depression rates fall by 50 per cent. Bad behaviour fell by a third.