Supporting Sense of School Belonging for Primary School Children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs: The Views and Perspectives of Teaching Staff.

Abstract

There is a wealth of research evidencing that feeling a sense of belonging at school is important and necessary. However, research suggests that one in four students do not feel that they belong at school whist children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) are more vulnerable to disliking school and experiencing rejection. This two phase project addressed a gap in the literature to explore why children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs are less likely than their peers to experience a sense of school belonging and consider what contributes to their school belonging. Within the first phase, a systematic literature review was conducted exploring how children and young people with SEN experience school belonging and what they identify as contributing to their sense of school belonging. 14 studies were included in a narrative synthesis. The findings highlighted that children with SEN appear to need more support in building school belonging than their peers. Multiple factors appear important to building school belonging, however interpersonal relationships was a dominant theme in what children and young people with SEN identify as supporting their sense of belonging at school. The review also suggested that children and young people with needs that could be described as SEMH are amongst the most vulnerable to not experiencing a sense of school belonging. This suggests that attention is warranted to explore how to promote these children and young people’s connections and relationships at school to help develop their sense of school belonging. In light of the findings within phase one, the second phase focused on how to enhance children with SEMH needs’ sense of school belonging. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 primary school classroom teachers and Teaching Assistants (TA). The interviews explored participants’ experiences of supporting children with SEMH needs and gathered their views on how to develop school belonging for the children they work with. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggested both differences and similarities in how teachers and TAs describe their experiences of supporting SEMH. Both groups of participants highlight that it is an emotive experience including both rewarding highs and challenging lows. There was further a sense that both teachers and TAs felt unsure and inexperienced when supporting social and emotional needs. These findings suggest that mainstream teaching staff could benefit from more support to cope with this aspect of their role in addition to giving them more knowledge about SEMH and what would help. Findings also suggested participants did not view SEMH to be a clear area to understand, there was a sense that it is a broad and wide area encompassing many different aspects. Findings further suggested that participants valued school belonging and considered it a priority. The research highlighted multiple ways to enhance school belonging for children with SEMH needs. Themes included having supportive relationships with adults, valuing children’s strengths, listening to the child, developing secure peer relationships and a school ethos emphasising wellbeing. The present research also explored the barriers children with SEMH needs face in developing school belonging. Findings suggested a range of reasons children with SEMH may find experiencing school belonging difficult. In particular, difficulties forming friendships and being excluded from the classroom were emphasised as key barriers to school belonging.