'How I Feel About My School': The construction and validation of a measure of wellbeing at school for primary school children.

There is a growing focus on child wellbeing and happiness in schools, but we lack self-report measures for very young children. Three samples ( N = 2345) were combined to assess the psychometric properties of the How I Feel About My School (HIFAMS) questionnaire, which was designed for children aged 4-8 years. Test-retest reliability was moderate (intraclass correlation coefficient = .62). HIFAMS assessed a single concept and had moderate internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha values from .62 to .67). There were low correlations between scores on the child-reported HIFAMS and parent and teacher reports. Children at risk of exclusion had significantly lower HIFAMS scores than the community sample (mean difference = 2.4; 95% confidence interval (CI) = [1.6, 3.2]; p < .001). Schools contributed only 4.5% of the variability in HIFAMS score, the remaining 95.5% reflecting pupil differences within schools. Girls' scores were 0.37 units (95% CI = [0.16, 0.57]; p < .001) higher than boys, while year group and deprivation did not predict HIFAMS score. HIFAMS is a promising measure that demonstrates moderate reliability and discriminates between groups even among very young children.

Influence of problematic child-teacher relationships on future psychiatric disorder: population survey with 3-year follow-up.

BACKGROUND: Teacher-pupil relationships have been found to mediate behavioural, social and psychological outcomes for children at different ages according to teacher and child report, but most studies have been small. AIMS: To explore later psychiatric disorder among children with problematic teacher-pupil relationships. METHOD: Secondary analysis of a population-based cross-sectional survey of children aged 5-16 with a 3-year follow-up. RESULTS: Of the 3799 primary-school pupils assessed, 2.5% of parents reported problematic teacher-pupil relationships; for secondary-school pupils (n = 3817) this rose to 6.6%. Among secondary-school pupils, even when children with psychiatric disorder at baseline were excluded and we adjusted for baseline psychopathology score, problematic teacher-pupil relationships were statistically significantly related to higher levels of psychiatric disorder at 3-year follow-up (odds ratio (OR) = 1.93, 95% CI 1.07-3.51 for any psychiatric disorder, OR = 3.00, 95% CI 1.37-6.58 for conduct disorder). Results for primary-school pupils were similar but non-significant at this level of adjustment. CONCLUSIONS: This study underlines the need to support teachers and schools to develop positive relationships with their pupils.