Peer-reviewed article
Associations between School Readiness and Student Wellbeing: A Six-Year Follow Up Study
Tess A Gregory, Eleonora Dal Grande, Mary E. Brushe, David Engelhardt, Samuel Luddy et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study followed 3,906 Australian children from age 5–6 to age 11–12 years to examine whether school readiness in early childhood predicts student wellbeing in Grade 6. Teachers rated children's readiness across five areas: physical, social, emotional, language, cognitive, and communication skills. The results show that early physical, social and emotional development are linked to all aspects of wellbeing measured six years later, including life satisfaction, optimism, sadness and worries. Language and cognitive skills were only associated with negative feelings like sadness and worry, not positive wellbeing. The findings suggest that supporting social and emotional development in early childhood may have lasting benefits for student wellbeing.
Key points
- Early physical, social and emotional development at age 5–6 were associated with all four wellbeing outcomes at Grade 6 after adjusting for background factors
- Early language, cognitive, and communication skills were associated only with internalising behaviours (sadness and worries), not with positive wellbeing outcomes
- The study tracked 3,906 Australian children over six years using teacher ratings of school readiness and student self-reports of wellbeing
- Results suggest different developmental domains influence later wellbeing through different mechanisms
- Schools and governments can use these findings to prioritise support for social and emotional development in early childhood
Limitations
The study relied on teacher ratings of school readiness and student self-reports of wellbeing, which may not capture all relevant measures of development or wellbeing. The sample is from Australia only, so findings may not generalise to other countries with different educational systems or cultural contexts.
Abstract
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 (Mage = 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 (Mage = 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.