News

Secondary school transition: Boost wellbeing with a focus on self-esteem

Transition Pupil wellbeing Mental health
A focus on building self-esteem could help prevent a sharp fall in wellbeing as young people begin secondary school, a study involving more than 11,000 UK students has concluded.

The research analysed the wellbeing of young people when they were aged 11 and then again at 14. While most said they were satisfied with life at age 11, by the time they turned 14 a majority said they were extremely dissatisfied.

The study, which has been published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology this week, found that school and peer relationships had driven the most dramatic downturns in wellbeing.

The research has been undertaken by academics from the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge who analysed the wellbeing and self-esteem of 11,231 young people from across the UK, using data collected when they were 11 and again when they were 14.

By age 14, the “subjective wellbeing” scores of 79% of the students had fallen below the average wellbeing score recorded across the entire cohort at age 11. The finding remains true regardless of a student’s circumstances or background.

The study looked at information about the students’ satisfaction with specific aspects of their lives, including school work, personal appearance, family and friends. It found that the most dramatic downturns between 11 and 14 were related to school and relationships with peers – and as such researchers link the fall in wellbeing to transition to secondary school.

However, the study found that students with higher self-esteem at age 11 experienced a less significant drop in wellbeing at age 14 – suggesting that interventions to strengthen self-esteem, particularly during the first years of secondary school, “could mitigate the likely downturn in wellbeing and life satisfaction”.

The study states: “Educators in secondary schools should make an effort to create a school climate that can provide support if needed, given that this study found a significant decrease in satisfaction with the school. Additionally, the negative effects of bullying on both subjective wellbeing and self-esteem … illustrates the need that educators should place more emphasis on building and sustaining positive peer relationships within schools.

“School-based interventions aiming to increase students' self-esteem may have a significant impact on adolescent students' subjective wellbeing, especially during early adolescence when students transition to secondary education and their self-esteem levels dramatically decrease.

“This could be achieved through pathways such as the introduction of some training specifically tailored to make adolescent students aware of their self-worth or changes in teachers' behaviour to include more praise.”

The researchers identify various ways in which schools could support this, suggesting that celebrating students’ achievements, underlining the value of things they had done well, and avoiding negative comparisons with other students could all help.

Co-author Ioannis Katsantonis from the University of Cambridge added: “Even though this was a large, diverse group of adolescents, we saw a consistent fall in wellbeing. One of the most striking aspects was the clear association with changes at school. It suggests we urgently need to do more to support students’ wellbeing at secondary schools across the UK.”