HAPPINESS and childhood; the two, we like to believe, go hand in hand.

Of course, we all know that not every childhood is happy and there are too many blighted by tragedy.

But if we were asked to picture a playground, most of us would think of laughing, running, footballs flying, of gaggles of dancing and singing children.

Yet despite the increased affluence of our society over the last 50 years – the better homes, foreign holidays, better health – we are no happier.

Depression and mental illness is costing us £25bn a year, and there is a very worrying rise among our young generations.

Educationalist Alistair Smith, believes this is very good grounds for a need to take happiness more seriously, to the point where he believes happiness should be as entrenched in a school's aims and objectives as a place at the top of the league tables.

"RIP Alistair Smith. Thank God he passed his Sats and got Level 5," he says. "In years to come you just can't see anyone wanting that on their headstone."

After all, he says, research shows children with a positive mind learn faster. Among other research gems he likes to quote are that the best indicator of how happy you will be in life is how happy you are as a child, that children feed off the optimism or pessimism of adults, and children who are highly irritated show high levels of neuroticism in later life and are more likely to be unhappy.

He doesn't propose happiness can be formally taught, but its values, he says, most certainly can be.

He believes schools should appoint a Head of Well-Being, or at least a well-being committee.

Happiness among teachers and pupils, he says, will raise results, improve pupils' prospects and reduce the chances of violence, truancy, drug taking and many similar problems blighting Britain's school populations.

Smith and his partner in Happiness, former headteacher Sir John Jones, recently brought their Winning the H Factor – The Secrets of Happy Schools conference, to Leeds.

"I think we are at a point of confusion. On the one hand we have a government and one before that which is pushing schools to be more independent, where people are able to set up their own schools, and academies outside local authority control, at the same time they are all asked to conform to the national curriculum and testing regime. Youngsters today are the most tested in the history of testing. I don't think testing brings happiness," Smith says.

He is, of course, far from alone in his dislike of the testing culture.

When last year UNICEF research showed Britain's children were the unhappiest of 21 developing nations, the Children's Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley Green was among those to point the finger at the constant pressure of school tests.

Smith and Jones, believe schools can take a proactive approach to create a positive learning environment, where pupils brim with happy hormones and feed off the happiness of their teachers.

So in a society apparently dogged by teenage anti-social behaviour drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, pupils settling disputes with knives, truancy, by overweight young people where teachers struggle to teach children who don't care, don't want to be there, how is this educational Utopia achieved. How do headteachers and their staff create the kind of learning environment which might make Walt Disney smile?

Strategies proposed by the duo, who are behind educational training firm Alite, include only having positive messages in assembly, holding weekly awards for the person who cheered everyone up, introducing a weekly staff lunch served by pupils, focusing on freedom of expression and giving opportunities for people to air concerns, and using positive language which talks of challenges not problems, learning not behaviour and setbacks not crises.

And while schools cannot opt out of tests, he says, they can stop talking about Ofsted and opt out of focusing learning on test results and instead focus on making pupils independent learners.

Schools which are happy, he believes, will have a well defined core purpose, much like a successful business, which will reflect the culture of the community it is at the heart of.

Research among teenagers recently showed one in five equate happiness with material wealth or fame. They see happiness as gracing the glossy pages of Hello! or winning a reality television show.

Among the exercises Alistair Smith and John Jones encourage their delegates to take back to their schools are simple classroom discussions about what it is to be happy.

How much happiness can you buy, for example, with £10? Would you buy more happiness by paying to restore the sight of a child in India, or by buying £10 worth of sweets to share with friends?

Happiness, they say, has been shown to increase where individuals focus on making others happy and another happiness homework exercise suggested is to ask pupils to find a way to make someone they know, outside the classroom, 10 per cent happier.

Smith and Jones believe what they are offering is preventative educational medicine.

John Jones, who spent 17 years as a headteacher in the North-West, says: "What we are saying is let's look at the culture, let's talk about happiness. If pupils are happy they are less likely to come in and abuse or assault the teacher, they are less likely to drink too much on a Friday night or consider taking drugs under pressure from peers. If you build a community in which individuals are happy then they are more likely to be functional."

For more details on Winning the H Factor – The Secrets of Happy Schools run by Alite visit www.alite.co.uk/training/TheHfactor.htm