PRIMARY school children in Oxfordshire are set to get help from mental health professionals based in their schools.

A pilot scheme will see the trained staff attend three primary schools in Oxfordshire from September, with the potential for the programme to be rolled out across the county.

It comes after campaigners said more needed to be done to help pupils in Oxfordshire with mental health problems.

Experts said a combination of modern pressures on children and a decreasing taboo around mental illness meant more pupils were being identified as suffering and from a younger age.

Windmill Primary School headteacher Lynn Knapp said she had seen evidence of primary-aged children self-harming and that mental health issues were more prominent than ever before.

She said: "There are more demands on children such as curriculum demands and attainment pressures.

"More parents are working, there are less opportunities to talk to them at home and children are more likely to be in school from 7.30am to 5.30pm.

"You might see that children are withdrawn – we have had the odd child who has self-harmed, we have children whose behaviour changes; we see it across all age groups.

"We need more access to services quicker, things take so long.

"We could refer a child and it could be weeks or months before they see someone."

In October 2014, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust started a scheme which led to mental health professionals being placed in secondary schools.

They are now based in 26 of the county's secondary schools and the primary scheme will follow a similar pattern.

Oxford Health spokesman Chris Kearney said: "These specially-trained mental health professionals provide direct care to young people within a school setting, offering therapy and support and work in consultation with the broader pastoral care teams to ensure young people’s emotional needs are met.

"As part of the service we offer to schools, there is also a telephone consultation line open to teachers and other professionals, where they can call and speak with a mental health professional and get advice."

He said the pilot primary school scheme would start on September 17.

Earlier this month think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research said schools faced a "perfect storm" of mental health problems and that early intervention should be a Government priority.

It claimed schools often lacked funding and internal expertise and that there was an inconsistent quality of mental health support available.

Martin Realey, chief executive of Oxford mental health charity Restore, said: "The earlier you can intervene and support someone the more likely it is that they can recover faster.

"The earlier we can educate people on mental illness the greater the likelihood we have of reducing the number of children with mental illness in this country."

Dr Mina Fazel, from the University of Oxford's Department of Psychiatry, was involved in the launch of the secondary school scheme in 2014.

She said: "Although mental illness is highly stigmatised, that is improving and that means more people are accessing services.

"But secondly if you look around society now we understand to be the risks to developing mental illness are increasing such as social-economic deprivation and austerity.

"There is also all the strains of social media as well.

"It provides a lot of support for people, there is a lot of useful support in terms of mental health."