What role does high school play in mental health? Feeling connected to other students and staff is key

By the time an Australian student is 15, they will have already spent as many as 11,000 hours at school.

Many formative social and emotional experiences occur at school. Because of this, there is increasing curiosity about what elements of this environment have the most impact on students’ mental health and wellbeing.

School connectedness – the degree to which students experience a sense of belonging and connection to others in the school community – has received growing attention from educators and researchers.

School connectedness includes relationships with other students. It also includes teachers and school staff such as sports coaches, counsellors and front office staff.

Higher school connectedness has been linked to several important school outcomes, such as higher academic achievement and showing fewer aggressive behaviours, including bullying.

But as our new study shows, there is mounting evidence school connectedness may also play a key role in supporting students’ wellbeing.

Our research

In a new study at the Black Dog Institute, we examined a range of different factors at school to understand which were most important for student mental health and wellbeing.

This list of factors we examined included school location, school type (private or public), school gender (boys only, girls only or co-ed), teacher-student ratios, school income, attendance, students’ cultural and linguistic diversity, staff perceptions of the schools’ culture, and students’ ratings of school connectedness and school climate.

School staff were asked to respond to statements about their school’s culture, such as “People at this school operate as a real team”.

Students were asked to rate how much they agreed with statements such as “Teachers try hard to help us”, “We feel safe in school”, “I feel like I belong at school” and “I make friends easily at school”.

We drew on data from more than 1,500 Year 8 students across 35 different types of high schools in New South Wales.

We used student and staff self-reported data as well as sociodemographic and school administrative data.

Students’ mental health was also assessed via standard psychological questionnaires.

What we found

Of all the factors we examined in our study, only students’ sense of school connectedness in Year 8 was linked to higher student wellbeing two years later, when students were in Year 10.

This means students who had high scores for school connectedness in Year 8 were more likely to have higher mental wellbeing in Year 10, even when we accounted for other factors such as gender and a history of mental health issues.

This finding highlights the role supportive, engaging relationships at school can play in students’ psychological wellbeing.

Our study found no link between student mental health and other school factors such as student-teacher ratios, school gender, or whether the school was public or private.

These factors have been linked to other important student outcomes such as academic achievement. Our study suggests they may be less meaningful for students’ wellbeing compared with how connected students feel to each other, school staff, and their school community.

What does this mean?

Our findings suggest enhancing connection early in high school is likely to improve wellbeing later in high school.

Belonging is an important aspect of healthy psychological functioning. Adolescence is a time of rapid development. A sense of belonging at school is thought to support teenagers psychologically as they gain more independence and establish a stronger sense of their identity.

How can we boost belonging?

Recent evidence suggests there are practical measures schools can take to foster and improve students’ feelings of school connectedness.

While more research is needed to determine the most effective strategies, there is evidence programs using a whole-of-school approach to engage teachers, staff and students together tend to be most effective.

Examples of this include school connection committees that involve teachers, staff and student membership, as well as providing platforms for students to raise concerns and ideas to school leadership.

Schools we have worked with have also tested mentoring programs across school grades, or having teachers lead lunchtime activities for students with special interests.

A recent meta-analysis also found programs that involved mentoring programs and fostering problem-solving skills with others were more effective than programs focusing on changing students’ behaviour.

More questions

Our study assessed a wide range of school factors early in high school when students were in Year 8. It may be that other factors are meaningful for student mental health and wellbeing in other years, particularly in primary school.

Our study also did not assess whether there were any differences among students from remote or traditionally marginalised communities.

Future research is needed to identify whether other school factors may also support the wellbeing of students who are more at risk for poor mental health.