English teenagers’ sense of “belonging” at secondary school among lowest in the world –and declining –new international survey reveals

Hard-working, but not "belonging"? New TIMSS data poses more questions on English pupils' sense of wellbeing. Image (posed by model); iStock/Getty Images

England’s teenagers have a lower sense of “belonging” at school than their peers in almost all other countries, data compiled as part of one of the world’s largest comparative testing systems has revealed.

Some 36 per cent of English 14-year-olds, taking part in the Trends in International Maths and Science Survey (TIMSS) had “little sense” of belonging at school, the survey based on student questionnaires completed last year found.

The country performed third-worst on this measure out of 43 nations, behind only Cyprus (38 per cent) and the Czech Republic (37 per cent). The international average for this measure, which incorporates answers to questions including how much the child likes school, was 21 per cent.

Recent trends

England’s trends in this unwanted ranking also make for alarming reading, further analysis of recent TIMSS datasets, taking into account the latest results which were published yesterday, reveals.

The proportion of 14-year-olds (classed as “8^th grade” by TIMSS) in England having “little sense” of belonging more than trebled from 2015 to 2023, the latest year. In 2015, the figure was only 11 per cent.

It is true that the international picture has been one of a worsening sense of “belonging” overall, with the average proportions of students across countries having “little sense” of belonging rising from nine per cent in 2015 to 21 per cent last year.

However, the rise in this figure in England was higher than the average, with the country thus climbing from 13^th out of 39 countries on the proportion of pupils having “little sense” of belonging in nine years ago, to 6^th out of 39 in 2019, and then 3^rd out of 43 in 2023.

Conversely, the proportion of students with a “high” sense of school belonging plummeted from 35 per cent in 2015 to just 14 per cent last year. (The proportion in the middle category of “some” belonging stayed relatively constant).

TIMSS creates an indicator of a “sense of school belonging” for children based on their answers to seven questions. These asked whether they agree or disagree with statements including “I like being in school”; “I feel safe when I am at school”; “teachers at this school care about me”; and “students at this school like me the way I am”.*

Context

The TIMSS findings for pupil achievement in maths and science tests continue to show English pupils doing relatively well, with both maths and science scores, for both “8^th grade” and “5^th grade” well above the international average. The test scores traditionally garner most media attention, and that was certainly the case when the results were published yesterday.

However, the figures on “belonging,” particularly for English secondary school pupils, seemed to have drawn little or no attention. Yet they appear to be part of a pattern, part of which was recently highlighted by the Education Secretary.

In a speech last month, Bridget Phillipson said: “The most recent data shows 1 in 3 fifteen-year-olds don’t feel they belong in school.”

That appeared to be a reference to perhaps the most well-known international testing study, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s “PISA” assessments. These had found that while, again, English teenagers performed relatively well in reading, maths and science tests, their sense of wellbeing appeared to be relatively poor.

As Natalie Perera, chief executive of the Education Policy Institute, put it when the PISA 2022 results came out last year: “The reported life satisfaction scores of UK students fell drastically between 2015 and 2022, to the extent that the UK now has the second lowest average life satisfaction of 15 year olds across all OECD countries.”

That data had also been picked up in August this year by the Children’s Society, which had stated that UK 15-year-olds had the lowest life satisfaction ratings among 27 European countries.

These findings seem to raise questions about all aspects of English teenagers’ lives, including their experiences at secondary school.

And, returning to the TIMSS “belonging” data, they do seem to provoke extra questions at the secondary level since its findings in relation to primary school-age children, though still somewhat concerning, are not as stark.

Findings for primary pupils

Among “5^th grade” – age 10 – pupils, the proportion of children in England with “little sense” of belonging at school was 15 per cent in 2023. This was a relatively bad result, internationally, ranking England 17 out of 58 countries, though that was further down than for the 8^th grade data as discussed above.

Back in 2015, only four per cent of English children had indicated they had “little sense” of belonging at school, which had ranked England 23 out of 49 nations. Internationally, this indicator had also risen over this period, from 4 per cent in 2015 to 12 per cent last year, meaning English children outstripped the increase by three percentage points.

The issue of children’s wellbeing in school seems to me to continue to be under-discussed. It is likely to be an ongoing theme of reporting.

*The full list of questions asked of students by TIMSS was whether they agreed with (agree a lot, agree a little, disagree a little, disagree a lot): “I like being in school”; “I feel safe when I am at school”; “I feel like I belong at this school”; “teachers at this school care about me”; “I am proud to go to this school”; “students in this school respect me”; and “students at this school like me the way I am”.

I have used data going back to 2015 in this article; I could not find the question asked in earlier years of the survey, but I am asking TIMSS if there is data on this which goes further back.