Results from an international survey have shown that children in England are amongst the unhappiest in the world. Prompting questions about the level of emphasis that schools place on student wellbeing.
Research carried out from the Children’s Society assessing the happiness of children in 15 countries ranked England 14th for overall life satisfaction, coming behind Romania and Algeria. Only South Korea scored lower.
Included in the study was an exploration of the children’s lives at school. England was ranked 14th out of 15 for pupils opinions of how they were treated by teachers, even though 44 per cent of students in years 6 and 8 in England totally agreed that their teachers treated them fairly. 28 per cent agreed with the statement “a lot”.
Happiness at school seems to decline when children move from primary school into secondary school. Is there less nurturing? Does the class teacher at junior school, who is a big part of their every day life, inspire a sense of security that they do not get in Year 7, moving from class to class every hour to a new teacher?
In Scotland last year, 11 percent of seven year olds had high levels of behavioural and emotional problems and a quarter of seven year olds were classed as having a low level of life satisfaction.
Until next time,
Elisa