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It has been well established that children's development at school entry is associated with their later academic achievement, but less is known about whether there is also an association with other measures of school success, such as students' social and emotional wellbeing. Given the increased focus for education systems on fostering student wellbeing, this study aimed to better understand the relationship between different aspects of children’s development and later social and emotional wellbeing.
The findings from this study will be used to help guide intervention programs that support school readiness, mental health and wellbeing in early childhood settings and schools.
This research used linked population data from the 2009 Australian Early Development Census and the 2015 Wellbeing and Engagement Collection (WEC). The AEDC captures five developmental domains of children’s development at school entry:
- physical health and wellbeing
- social competence
- emotional maturity
- language and cognitive skills
- communication skills and general knowledge.
The WEC captures a wide range of students' self-report social and emotional wellbeing, engagement with school, learning readiness and health and wellbeing out of school. This study utilised 4 domains related to social and emotional wellbeing (life satisfaction, optimism, sadness and worries) when students were in grade 6.
The Fraser Mustard Centre was funded to undertake this work through an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project.
