The findings come from a study which followed almost 600 children during and after their transition to 10 secondary schools in England.
It found “substantial instability” in children’s friendships as they moved from primary to secondary school, with only 27 per cent keeping the same best friend until the end of the first year of secondary school.
However, those children who did maintain the same friends tended to do better academically and showed lower levels of behavioural problems – even after taking into account the children’s earlier levels of academic attainment and any behaviour problems at primary school.
The research has been led by Dr Terry Ng-Knight from the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey and was published last week in the British Journal of Educational Psychology.
Elsewhere, the study found that keeping the same best friend was not associated with benefits to emotional mental health. However, maintaining other lower-quality friendships was linked to worsening emotional health during the transition.
The findings also show that children with pre-existing emotional and behavioural problems and lower academic attainment were at higher risk of losing their best friends during the transition. The study concludes: “There may, therefore, be value in supporting friendships among these children.”
Dr Ng-Knight said: “We found that children who kept the same best friend over the transition tend to do better. Children’s best friends change for all sorts of reasons, but the transition is likely a big factor disrupting friendships.
“If we can find ways to support friendships during this time this may help us to improve attainment and behaviour.
“Secondary schools vary in the extent to which they actively support pupil friendships during transition. Some schools encourage children and parents to nominate friends they would like to remain with and some schools do not allow any input from children and parents.
“Allowing children to choose which friends they would like to be with appears to help children maintain their friendships, but little is known about the knock-on effects of such policies so it deserves more research attention.”
The article will be free to view online until the end of October. Visit https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjep.12246