In 2017, the first national survey of children and young people’s mental health in over a decade revealed that one in seven young people aged 11-16 has a mental health disorder serious enough to affect their day-to-day lives. For many of these young people, these years are characterised by preparing for exams which can shape their future. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research on whether mental health in the early years of secondary school might have a role to play in determining their chances of educational success, and ultimately affect their life chances.
The aim of this research was to examine whether mental health in early adolescence at ages 11 to 14 (Key Stage 3) has an association with attainment at age 15-16 years (Key Stage 4 GCSE). We know that many circumstances faced by young people might be related to their mental health as well as their attainment, so we accounted for a range of other demographic, social, economic and behavioural factors which could explain the relationship.
We were able to examine this question because Waves 1 and 3 of the Understanding Society youth panel asked a series of questions which make up the scale known as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), where higher scores indicate poorer mental health. We grouped SDQ scores into ‘typical’, ‘borderline’ and ‘atypical’ categories, where atypical indicates the most serious problems.
Another feature of Understanding Society is that many of the respondents gave their permission to link their responses to the National Pupil Database. This meant we could explore who achieved the national educational benchmark of 5 A*-C GCSE grades including English and Maths at Key Stage 4. We also investigated the effects of a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic information at Key Stage 3 such as family income, school factors, parental relationships and health, as well as what they had attained in Key Stage 2.
What we found
We examined a cohort of 1,100 young people aged between 11 and 14 and observed a strong association between poor mental health in early adolescence and lower educational attainment at GCSE at ages 15-16. Specifically, we found that a one-point increase in young people’s scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at age 11 to 14 was equivalent to dropping one grade at GCSE.
Over half (57%) of young people with ‘atypical’ SDQ scores did not achieve 5 A*-C grades including English and Maths at GCSE, compared to 48% of their peers with ‘borderline’ scores, and 30% of those with ‘typical’ SDQ scores.
Importantly, we found that this association was independent from other factors which were also related to mental health and attainment. Young people with atypical SDQ scores were 3.2 times more likely not to achieve 5 A*-C GCSE grades (including English and Maths), even after accounting for prior attainment and demographic, and household socioeconomic characteristics.
One set of characteristics which did explain the relationship to some degree was young people’s attitudes towards school and their relationships with their parents. We found that young people tended to do less well in their GCSEs if they had poor mental health aged 11-14 and also felt less happy with school or had poorer relationships with their parents. Nevertheless, it seems that poor mental health has a negative influence on attainment over and above the influence of other risk factors.
What we know now
We found that poor mental health in the early years of secondary school is an important predictor of later educational success. The past decade has seen several policy efforts to boost the attainment of young people with socially disadvantaged backgrounds, yet our findings suggest that the mentally healthiest are the most likely to be academically successful, regardless of social background. Tackling young people’s mental health may be an effective means for boosting educational attainment, for all young people.
Meanwhile, young people face a double hit to their educational prospects following the enforced closures by the Covid-19 pandemic. First, they have lost, and must work hard to regain, several months of their education. Second, the effects of lockdown have affected the mental health of the young to a greater extent than any other age group, and those young people whose mental health was affected to the greatest extent by the pandemic are likely to have the greatest difficulty in making up for lost time in school.
Given the recent emphasis on the role of schools and colleges as universal services in supporting children and young people’s mental health, schools have been given the opportunity to target mental health as a key factor in allowing young people to reach their capacity and make sure their pupils leave education capable of fulfilling their potential.
This work was funded by a grant from the ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative (ES/R005400/1)
Authors
Neil Smith
Neil Smith led this research at the National Centre for Social Research and can be contacted at comms@natcen.ac.uk
