Belonging ‘essential’ but conflicts with other pressures, report says

Schools that make pupils feel like they belong do not see it as a “distraction”, but it can create a “tension” with other pressures such as exam results, a government-commissioned report has found.

Research by Ipsos Mori and TONIC for the Department for Education looked at 16 school case studies that focused on measuring how much their pupils felt they belonged.

It comes as the DfE plans to introduce a belonging framework by next September.

Researchers found building school belonging was “essential and achievable, requiring neither enormous resources nor revolutionary change, but rather thoughtful, sustained attention to relationships, culture and practice”.

They added that it was “not a distraction from education’s core business but part of its essential foundation”.

But the report also found a “central tension” between belonging and other pressures, including academic attainment.

It follows on from a landmark review by Peter Fonagy, published this month, that found while education was “unlikely to be the principal driver of worsening mental health” it appeared to have “become a more important contributor that for previous generations”.

Defining belonging

The Ipsos Mori and TONIC researchers looked at eight primaries and eight secondaries that had successfully embedded belonging-supportive practices.

They were picked out if they used certain programmes or initiatives, such as UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools or were members of attendance and behaviour hubs.

The study, which looked at how belonging was understood by staff and pupils, and how it was translated into everyday practice, found that pupils defined it differently throughout their time at school.  

While primary pupils defined belonging through “tangible, observable experiences” such as buddy systems, secondary pupils described the “importance of seeing their cultures and interests reflected in school life”.

All case study schools said safety and security of pupils, inclusion, collective identity and individual recognition contributed to a positive sense of belonging.

Pupils said outdoor spaces, calm rooms, creative spaces such as art or music rooms, and lunchtime areas were important.

They noted a “clear causal link” between belonging and participation in class, such as being able to ask for help or take risks.

School type

Researchers also found more rural, faith and selective schools had different perceptions of, and challenges, with belonging.

Rural primary schools said belonging developed “naturally” through close relationships and staff stability. But rural secondaries found it harder to develop belonging as pupils arrived from a wide catchment of primaries.

For faith schools, researchers found faith identify “functions as a unifying frame rather than an exclusionary one”, based around shared values and rituals.

However, academically selective schools said there was a tension between promoting belonging and the nature of their school. 

More widely, researchers found a “central tension” between belonging approaches and “conflicting systemic pressures, such as the strain on staff capacity, punitive attendance policies and a narrow focus on academic data”.

“While attendance and attainment-focused interventions can also make a pupil feel cared for, an overemphasis on high grades can inadvertently undermine a sense of belonging for pupils who are not top academic performers.”

Fonagy found that although exams “produce measurable distress” they “do not explain the long-term trend” of worsening mental health.

“The evidence nevertheless suggests that young people experience educational environments as increasingly evaluative, with attainment more closely tied to perceptions of future opportunity.”

Belonging ‘despite of system’

Beccy Earnshaw, the interim chief executive at The Difference, said while schools were working hard to make belonging central to everything they did, they were too often doing this “despite, rather than because of, the system”.

She suggested ministers must “create the conditions for every school to succeed by removing obstacles and realigning incentives”.

Dr Nicole Ponsford, the founder and director of research and impact at Kaleidoscope, said the case studies offered valuable insights into how schools sought to create belonging.

“The next step is to understand how consistently those intentions translate into people’s everyday experiences.”

The DfE is drawing up a belonging framework for schools to use from September next year. It is expected all will be measuring belonging by 2029.