Children’s well-being in primary school: pupil and school effects
(2008) Leslie Morrison Gutman and Leon Feinstein
Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report No.25
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This study investigates pupil and school effects on children’s well-being between the ages of 8 and 10. We found that most children experience positive well-being in primary school. However, one in five children suffers from either declining or consistently low well-being during these years. This subset is most likely to be male, low achieving, and from poorer backgrounds.
Our research also shows that it is children’s individual experiences, such as interactions with teachers, bullying or friendships, and their beliefs about themselves and their environment, which mainly affect their well-being, rather than the type of school they attend.
Although we find that school-level factors have relatively little effect, on average, there are small, but significant, differences between schools which are explained by factors such as school disadvantage and school ethos.
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