Strong feelings of belonging among pupils are linked to a “profound shift” in their academic profile equivalent to an extra GCSE grade across eight subjects, government-commissioned research suggests. But the new study found girls, white children, pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with SEND are less likely to report feeling they “belong” in school. The research, by Pallavi Banerjee of the University of Cambridge for Government Social Research, concluded that “higher school belonging is associated with higher attainment”. School belonging and attainment at key stage 4: linked data study compared pupils’ responses to questions about belonging with their characteristics and attainment data. The document uses two measures of belonging. One is a headline measure based on whether pupils felt they belonged at school in responses to PISA surveys. The other is a broader “belonging index” relying on responses to multiple survey questions, such as whether they make friends easily and whether other students seem to like them, or if they feel lonely. It follows the schools white paper earlier this year, in which the government said it would expect every school to “monitor pupils’ sense of belonging and engagement” by 2029. Previous education secretary Bridget Phillipson also said that thriving and belonging would feature “prominently in our work in the opportunity mission, hand in hand with attainment”. ‘Profound shift’ Pupils who agreed they belonged at school based on the single-item measure of belonging had “significantly higher attainment than those who didn’t, after controlling for prior attainment, demographics and bullying”. Removing bullying from the model had “little impact” on the findings. Researchers said “the relationship remains strong, positive and significant which suggests the relationship between school belonging and attainment is not driven by bullying alone”. Its model “shows moving from strongly agreeing to strongly disagreeing (that an individual belongs at school) is associated with a statistically significant 8-point decrease in attainment 8 score after accounting for wider demographic factors, prior attainment and bullying. “It represents a profound shift in a student’s academic profile, equivalent to dropping around a full GCSE grade across eight different subjects.” However, when measuring belonging using the broader belonging index, “we do not observe a statistically significant relationship between belonging and attainment, after adjusting for prior attainment, demographics and reported experience of bullying. “When bullying is excluded from the model, we observe a modest positive association between belonging and attainment, though this remains statistically insignificant.” The report warned the broader belonging index “conflates a range of concepts into a single index, some of which are related to bullying”. It concluded the single item measure was “preferred as a cleaner and more precise metric”. ‘Higher belonging associated with higher attainment’ It went on to say: “Although the research design does not intend to establish causality, the analysis shows that attainment is higher on average among pupils with stronger reported school belonging. “This holds for the single item measure of reported school belonging even after we control for prior attainment, demographics and bullying, suggesting that this effect is not entirely driven by pupil characteristics. “We therefore conclude higher school belonging is associated with higher attainment.” However, the report noted the PISA survey was run in the same academic year as the pupils took their GCSEs, “so the findings need to be interpreted with caution as we do not make any claims about how school belonging influences attainment in the much longer term”. “Thriving and belonging are valuable goals, and current policy encourages schools to prioritise them. Recent DfE research has explored pupils’ experiences of school belonging, safety, and enjoyment. “Our understanding of how belonging relates to attainment, based on the evidence presented in this report, suggests that these aims are mutually reinforcing.” Some pupils feel they belong less The report also looked at feelings of belonging based on different pupil characteristics. Based on the headline measure, the report found boys were more likely to report feeling they belonged at school than girls (66 vs 58 per cent). The difference was “statistically significant”. Researchers also found a statistically significant gap in belonging between white students (60 per cent) and Asian and Black students (70 and 72 per cent respectively). Based on the index measure, the report found pupils without SEND had significantly higher belonging scores than those with SEND. However, both groups in England fell significantly below the average across the OECD group of countries. Pupils not eligible for free school meals were also more likely to feel that they belonged than those eligible. The report also looked at reported levels of bullying by pupils of different characteristics. Pupils with SEND reported statistically significantly higher levels of bullying than the OECD average, while those without SEND reported lower levels. White pupils also reported statistically significantly higher bullying than the OECD average of all pupils, whereas Asian pupils reported lower levels.