“Multiple factors are influencing this, including declining mental health. During the pandemic, excursions, sport and co-curricular activities were cancelled. Increasing social media use is also contributing,” Buckingham said. “Attendance also hasn’t recovered to where we would like it to be.”
A separate department report obtained by the Herald reveals that surveys of more than 60,000 public school parents in 2021 found they were less likely to recommend their child’s public school than five years earlier. Parents also said they felt less welcome, and had lower perceptions of their child’s high school being safe.
That report said equity gaps were growing when it comes to sense of belonging, with a 27 percentage point gap between advantaged and disadvantaged high school students. “The state of toilets, playgrounds and covered areas is particularly important” when it comes to a sense of belonging, the report said.
High school teachers reported a slight improvement in school leadership in the five years to 2021, while primary teachers reported a decline.
Last year, 52 per cent of girls at public high schools reported a positive sense of belonging at school, compared with 62 per cent of boys.
Tell Them From Me surveys capture the views of students in years 4 to 12 at NSW public schools, with 353,243 pupils surveyed in 2023. Of those, 188,126 were high school students.
Buckingham said boosting “the visible presence of staff when parents are around at school, at the gates and at pick-up and drop off”, could lift connections between families and the school.
Other factors identified as boosting sense of belonging include participation in sport, strong peer relationships, an absence of bullying, positive teacher-student relations, classroom management and quality teaching practices.
“Explicit teaching is highly interactive between students and teachers,” Buckingham said. “It’s not done via apps and screens. It involves eye contact and checking for students’ understanding.”
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Educational psychologist Kelly-Ann Allen said a positive sense of belonging is linked to feeling safe at school and having supportive teacher-student relationships, while negative factors included bullying and high levels of academic stress.
The former president of NSW Secondary Schools Principals’ Council, Craig Petersen, said the impact of screens and social media were influencing the dip in sense of belonging nationally.
“We are increasingly seeing young people withdrawing from social contact and higher rates of mental health issues,” he said.
“Sport participation is declining, and students’ willingness to be involved in physical activity. More parents are also giving excuses for their children not to participate in sport. It’s an issue that has been exacerbated in accessing sports grounds. There is also the wider issue of disconnection, and a loss in sense of community and neighbourhood more broadly.”
A NSW Education Department spokesperson said schools around the world and Australia had faced high levels of disruption.
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