Building belonging in school may enhance children’s wellbeing and learning, experts say

Educators and researchers highlight the importance of fostering a sense of belonging in the early weeks of school, arguing that prioritising relationships over assessment can improve children’s mental health and engagement in learning.

At the start of a new school year, many children are expected to settle in and perform almost at once. Yet educators and researchers argue that the first task of school is not assessment but belonging: children learn more readily when they feel safe, recognised and known as individuals.

That view is central to the argument made by Claudia Rehder, a teacher and coach cited by Focus online, who says the opening weeks of school should be used to build relationships before pupils are pushed into tests and grading. She warns that the habit of checking progress almost immediately, even when children are still adjusting to new classrooms and classmates, puts pressure ahead of connection.

Her concerns are echoed in wider German education research. Katrin Lohrmann of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich has argued that grades should be delayed in primary school so that the early years remain a protected space for personality development and a love of learning. The Robert Bosch Stiftung’s German School Barometer has also found that many pupils are carrying heavy burdens, with more than a quarter rating their quality of life as low and around a fifth reporting mental strain and poor wellbeing at school.

Studies from Leibniz University Hannover and a paper in the Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft add to that picture by linking academic pressure to anxiety, stress and weaker wellbeing, while showing that children’s school experiences are closely tied to how they are judged and supported. Taken together, the research suggests that a school system focused too quickly on measurement may miss a simpler truth: children are not just future performers, but people whose confidence, curiosity and sense of security shape everything that follows.