Proportion of English pupils saying they dislike school doubles in eight years

England sadly now has third-highest figure of any nation within the TIMSS study saying they do not like school

 

The proportion of pupils in England who say they dislike school has doubled in eight years, with the country now having among the world’s least satisfied teenagers, little-noticed data from one of the largest international testing studies shows.

Nearly half of England’s 14-year-olds (48 per cent) said they disagreed with the statement “I like being in school,” compared to figures of 31 per cent in 2019 and 24 per cent in 2015, data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) found.

At primary level, separate data for England’s 10-year-olds show the proportion saying they did not like it at school rising from 14 per cent in 2015 to 28 per cent in 2023, although the country is not among the world’s worst performers on this measure at this age.

The new data, based on survey answers from 650,000 children globally including 8,000 in England, seem to add to questions about what might be driving pupil dissatisfaction here, with another major international testing survey also seeming to point in the same direction.

The background

In December, Education Uncovered was I think the only media organisation to report on a finding within the latest TIMSS study which showed low and falling figures for England in terms of the sense of “belonging” particularly secondary school pupils had, based on their responses to questions in the study’s questionnaire. 

That story was based on a composite indicator that TIMSS had compiled from students’ answers to seven separate questions, including whether children liked being in school, as well as whether they felt safe, whether their teachers cared about them and whether students liked them the way they were.

At the time, data on answers to individual questions within this indicator were not available. TIMSS has now, however, released them, buried within a database of responses to hundreds of survey questions.

The detail: 14-year-olds

The TIMSS data show that, in England, in 2023, 24.1 per cent of those pupils in what it calls “Grade 8” – roughly aged 14 or in our year 9 – “disagreed a lot” with the statement “I like being in school”. A further 23.5 per cent “disagreed a little” with the statement, meaning 47.6 per cent disagreed overall.

This compared to an international average of 20.4 per cent (13.5 per cent disagreeing a lot, and 16.9 per cent a little). The data were based on 4,000 grade 8 pupils in England completing questionnaires, and nearly 300,000 across all countries.

Sadly, England had the second-highest proportion of pupils saying they “disagreed a lot” about liking being in school, among 47 jurisdictions. Only Cyprus, on 31.9 per cent, fared worse. Taking figures for “disagreeing a little” and “disagreeing a lot” together, England was third-worst, behind Cyprus (57 per cent) and the Czech Republic (56 per cent).

 

 

England also saw the third-highest fall, in terms of liking school, of any of the TIMSS jurisdictions between the previous round of TIMSS, in 2019, and 2023. Its figure of 47.6 per cent not liking school was a 16.5 percentage point increase on the 31.1 per cent for 2019. Only Lithuania (22 per cent to 42 per cent disliking school) and France (25.7 to 42.4) saw that number grow by more.

Going further back, in 2015 some 23.7 per cent of grade 8 pupils in England disagreed with the “I like being in school” statement: 15.9 per cent a little and 7.8 per cent a lot. This means that the percentage saying they disliked school among the English sample of pupils doubled over this period, with those saying they disliked school a lot, sadly, trebling.

Although satisfaction with school has fallen across all countries taking part in TIMSS over the period, the rate of change was considerably higher in England, with dissatisfaction rates rising from 18 to 30 per cent overall since 2015, and those saying they disliked school “a lot” doubling, from 6 to 13 per cent, rather than the trebling seen in England.

Figures for TIMSS in 2011 and 2007, both for England and internationally, showed a different trend, with dissatisfaction rates actually having fallen slightly between 2007 and 2015.

The detail: 10-year-olds

The questionnaire data show lower proportions of primary pupils saying they dislike school, both in England and across all countries. Despite this, sadly the English numbers are also going in a concerning direction, with the period 2019 to 2023 showing this country faring badly even compared to other countries.

The figure of 28.2 per cent of English 10-year-olds – called “grade 4” by TIMSS but equating to our year 5 – saying they disagreed with the “I like being in school” statement compared to 18.9 per cent in 2019 and 13.5 per cent in 2015 – a rise of 14.7 points overall.

This means this dissatisfaction figure more than doubled, for England, over the eight-year-period from 2015. The percentage disagreeing “a lot” also doubled, from 5.8 to 11.9 per cent.

By contrast, internationally, the proportion of children disliking school rose by only 5.6 points between 2015 and 2023, from 13.8 per cent in 2015 to 16.4 per cent in 2019 and 19.4 per cent in 2023.

And, internationally, those disliking school a lot rose at a less fast rate across all countries than that seen in England, with the international figures rising from 6.1 per cent in 2015 to 7.2 per cent in 2019 and nine per cent in 2023.

In fact, in 2015, roughly a similar proportion of English 10-year-olds said they disliked school to the international average. By 2023, there was a nine percentage point gap.

By contrast, dissatisfaction levels among English primary pupils had been falling over the period 2007 to 2015, with 24.4 per cent of children saying they disliked school in 2015. Internationally, satisfaction rates improved slightly over this period, too.

English primary school pupils, though, ranked more positively, in terms of their answers, against those of other nations than did our secondary students (see more detail below).

In 2023, 4,000 grade 4 children in England, and 360,000 internationally, completed the TIMSS surveys.

The other nations of the UK – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have not taken part in TIMSS pupil questionnaires* in recent years.

PISA findings pointing in same direction

As I wrote back in December, the TIMSS findings for England on happiness are sadly consistent with statistics for the UK from the most well-known international testing study: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s “PISA” tests. 

The reported life satisfaction scores of UK students fell drastically between 2015 and 2022, with the Children’s Society having stated last year that UK 15-year-olds had the lowest life satisfaction ratings among 27 European countries.

Further analysis: behind the TIMSS “belonging” indicator

As I wrote back in December, England’s grade 8 students placed third-last in terms of having “little sense” of belonging at school, as measured by these TIMSS questionnaires for 2023, with the “belonging” indicator itself an amalgamation of answers to seven individual questions within TIMSS.

As discussed above, one of those seven questions concerned whether the child liked school.

Results for the other six also feature in the extensive database which has now been released by TIMSS.

Of these questions, sadly the other one that England performed especially badly on at grade 8 was on asking pupils whether they agreed with the statement “teachers care about me”.

England ranked third-worst of all TIMSS jurisdictions in terms of answers to this question, with 39 per cent of responses disagreeing with the statement, including 16 per cent who strongly disagreed. As with the “like school” question, only the Czech Republic and Cyprus fared worse on this measure.

This poor result perhaps fuels a sense that something about the policies operating in English schools is not perceived, by a significant proportion of young people, as working in their interests.

The other indicators saw 35 per cent of grade 8 students in England disagreeing with the statement “I feel like I belong at this school”(5^th worst in TIMSS); 40 per cent disagreeing with the statement “I am proud to go to this school” (5^th worst); 30 per cent disagreeing with the statement “students at this school like me the way I am” (5^th worst); 30 per cent disagreeing with the statement “students in this school respect me” (8^th worst); and 30 per cent disagreeing with the statement “I feel safe when I am at school” (9^th worst).

Responses from England’s primary school children, as featured in the grade 4 TIMSS survey, paint a better picture than those for grade 8.

In fact, in two of the six questions which made up the overall “belonging” indicator at primary level, English 10-year-olds gave answers putting our system slightly ahead of international averages.

On whether they felt safe at school, only 14.4 per cent of pupils in England disagreed, which was slightly better than the international average of 14.9 per cent. And, in terms of whether teachers care about them, only 10.4 per cent of pupils in England disagreed, compared to the international average of 11.6 per cent. In both cases, the country was mid-table internationally, being ranked 33^rd-worst out of 64 jurisdictions.

Both of these question responses set up an interesting contrast with English secondary schools, as they were substantially more positive than those seen from 14-year-olds in this country.

The other four question responses saw England ranking 13^th-worst in terms of liking school (28 per cent disagreeing); also 13^th-worst in terms of having a sense of belonging at school (20 per cent disagreeing); 26^th-worst in terms of feeling proud of their school (14 per cent disagreeing); and 19^th-worst in terms of agreeing with the statement “Students at this school like me the way I am”.  

The TIMSS database features a wealth of other interesting statistics, which I may well return to imminently.

 

Snap analysis: Why is England doing so badly?

These international comparative data offer some tentative pointers for analysis, in terms of what may be driving England faring so poorly on what seem important indicators of how pupils feel about their educational experiences.

Why are such large and growing minorities of children here saying they don’t like school, for example?

Two reasons often put forward amid concerns about pupil wellbeing seem to me to offer only partial explanations at best for these numbers.

First, the rise of digital technology, children’s screen time and social media are often said to be threatening our young people’s mental health. But, with digitisation seemingly more or less ubiquitous across the TIMSS surveyed countries (from a quick look at survey responses**, it doesn’t seem that England has a greatly higher screen use than comparable nations), this cannot explain why this country fares relatively poorly compared to other nations on measures such as liking school. Nor would it explain why our numbers seem to have got worse faster than other countries.

Second is the impact of Covid. Few would deny that lockdown has had a lasting impact on a large number of children. However, again with the pandemic by its nature near-ubiquitous globally in terms of having provoked lockdown responses from policymakers, this in itself would not explain why England has performed badly relative to other nations.

I wonder, though, with our numbers on liking school having dropped particularly dramatically, again relative to other countries, between 2019 and 2023, whether the specifics of this country’s post-Covid response may have played a part. In particular, the decision by the previous government not to invest in much post-pandemic social support in schools, essentially favouring a “get back to normal as quickly as possible” approach while engaging in seemingly anxiety-ridden directives to improve pupil attendance and results but without attending to managing the emotional effects of the pandemic, might be a factor. 

Otherwise, in terms of specific characteristics of England’s system that stand out in terms of contrasting with what happens in other countries, and what has happened here previously, two other possible factors suggest themselves.

One is the rise of “no excuses” behaviour policies in English secondary schools. Whatever the arguments in favour of them in terms of making classrooms more orderly, the rigidity of such approaches can seem built-in, and will seem to critics as overly top-down in terms of their approach.

At the very least, advocates of concepts such as “warm-strict” approaches to behaviour management might need to explain why, given that nearly half of English secondary school pupils in this survey say they do not like school, not all are feeling this “warmth”.

The other characteristic is the curriculum and qualifications reforms overseen by the former education secretary Michael Gove, and long-serving former schools minister Nick Gibb, in recent years. Again, these were imposed on schools centrally, with the pupil experience not, in my view, ever exactly at the forefront of policy considerations. How schooling actually looks to those on the end of it was barely discussed. If that is changing – and the new government at least talking about pupil wellbeing suggests at least a rhetorical shift – that would be welcome. These statistics, though, may suggest an unwelcome impact of such reforms. 

This is all tentative, of course, however. I would be interested in any thoughts from readers as to what may be behind statistics which seem consistent with those from PISA, in pointing in a concerning direction.   

 

*Wales and Scotland have not taken part in TIMSS in recent years, though are planning to do so from 2027. Northern Ireland has been taking part in TIMSS grade 4 tests, but I cannot find any results from its pupils in the background questionnaires reported on here.

** England ranked, for example, only 15^th in TIMSS 2023 in terms of the proportion of grade 8 students who said they had a smartphone at home, on 96.5 per cent.