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Royal Visit For School Where Parents Join Classes

The charity behind a unique new school where parents go to class with their children says it is already having a dramatic impact on improving pupils' mental health.

Sky News has been given access to the school, which is run by the Anna Freud Centre in North London, ahead of a visit by the Duchess of Cambridge today.

The Family School focuses as much on a child's mental health as teaching them traditional subjects.

Mums and dads sit in on lessons, but also go to their own classes to learn how they can more effectively support their children.

Most pupils will only spend a couple of terms at the school. Wayne Llewllyn's son is now ready to go back into mainstream school.

He told Sky News: "Before he came here he was very aggressive, very outspoken and challenged everything.

"Things happen at home that can affect a child's learning at school and sometimes parents can be wearing blinkers and blind to that sort of thing, because you may have other children.

"I have another son who has ADHD, so we knew there were a lot of things we had to do, and this school has taught me to listen to my son a lot more and made me a better father for it."

Now back to her royal duties after the birth of her daughter, the Duchess will be given a tour of the school.

Kensington Palace says Kate wants to learn more about what is being done to help children currently being failed by mental health provision, and support vulnerable families.

We are told she believes it is a major social issue of her generation . Earlier this year she released a video message to launch Child Mental Health Week.

Psychologist Peter Fonagy is chief executive at the Anna Freud Centre, and believes too many children are currently being let down because services are not joined up.

He said: "Fifty per cent of adult mental health issues start before someone is 14.

"It all starts in childhood, we can do something about it in childhood but we fail a large number of children.

"One in 10 children - about one million out of the 11 million children in England - has a mental health problem. Out of that, at most, we see 250,000 in child mental services. We need to do better, we need to do more."

Andrea Noguera will share her story with the Duchess. When she had her first son she was living in a tiny hostel and developed post-natal depression.

Now a mum of two, she told Sky News that getting help for her own issues has improved the mental health of her whole family.

She said: "Children copy what their parents do so we're role models.

"If I'm mothering him being sad, crying and being angry, that's what he's going to do. But if my mood changes and I change, that's how he changes. So if I'm happy and more outgoing he will learn that and he will socialise with other people as well."

Alongside The Family School, the Anna Freud charity is also setting up a centre of excellence for training to encourage a more family-focused approach to child mental health issues, and make sure all sectors work closer together.

The Government and the NHS are understood to be watching the progress of the school closely.

Nationally, £1.25bn has been committed to dealing with the issue over the next five years to help the hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers who continue to need help.