Associations between School Readiness and Student Wellbeing: A Six-Year Follow Up Study

Abstract

It is well established that children's school readiness is associated with their later academic achievement, but less is known about whether school readiness is also associated with other measures of school success, such as students' social and emotional wellbeing. While some previous research has shown a link between early social and emotional development and student wellbeing, results are mixed and the strength of these relationships vary depending on whether data is based on child, teachers or parents ratings and which specific student wellbeing outcomes are measured. The present study explored the association between teacher-rated school readiness (M age = 5.6 years) across five developmental domains (physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive, and communication and general knowledge) and four aspects of student wellbeing (life satisfaction, optimism, sadness and worries) in Grade 6 (M age = 11.9 years) in a sample of 3906 Australian children. After adjustment for background child and family-level factors, children's early physical, social and emotional development were associated with all four wellbeing outcomes in Grade 6, but early language and cognitive skills and communication and general knowledge skills were only associated with internalising behaviours (sadness and worries). Mechanisms through which these different aspects of development might influence later wellbeing are discussed, as well as ways that schools and governments can support students' social and emotional wellbeing.

Relationships between Child Development at School Entry and Adolescent Health—A Participatory Systematic Review

“…Of the 34 included studies there were 32 prospective longitudinal studies [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 ], one retrospective longitudinal study [ 65 ] and one meta-analysis [ 66 ]. Detailed descriptions of the included studies are available in additional file 8.…”

“…Detailed descriptions of the included studies are available in additional file 8. Of the 34 studies, 14 were set in the United States [ 35 , 36 , 39 , 43 , 45 , 47 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 64 ], seven in Canada [ 38 , 46 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 63 ], five in Australia [ 34 , 41 , 44 , 48 , 62 ], three in the UK [ 40 , 42 , 61 ], three in The Netherlands [ 33 , 37 , 65 ], one in Denmark [ 60 ] and one in which the countries included in the analysis were not explicitly stated [ 66 ].…”

“…Two studies [ 41 , 61 ] measured across all domains of child development and education. One study assessed the component parts of teacher-rated school readiness in relation to the country’s early development instrument and one focused on child development in all domains in a health visitor check as a composite measure.…”

“…Two studies provided evidence across multiple domains [ 41 , 61 ]. One study evidenced that all components of school readiness (as part of a model of early years data), measured by UK health visitors before starting school, predicted socio-emotional behaviour problems in early adolescence [ 61 ].…”

“…One study evidenced that all components of school readiness (as part of a model of early years data), measured by UK health visitors before starting school, predicted socio-emotional behaviour problems in early adolescence [ 61 ]. An Australian study which investigated the relationships between all domains of school readiness and wellbeing at the end of primary school found that all domains were negatively associated with internalising symptoms, whereas only physical and socio-emotional development were positively associated with overall wellbeing [ 41 ].…”