Want to boost pupils' sense of belonging? Let them laugh

How often do pupils laugh in your school? Do your classrooms and corridors echo with laughter or are they silent and mirthless?

Such a question may seem strange but new research from Australia shows why it’s worth asking - the amount of laughter in a school can have a direct impact on pupils’ sense of flourishing and belonging, both vital for school success.

The research, Student Flourishing in Australian Christian Schools, was published this summer by Christian Schools Australia in collaboration with Harvard University’s Human Flourishing Program.

While this study was conducted in another country, the scale of it gives it some real heft: 22,000 students aged 12 to 18 across 57 schools were asked to complete surveys at the beginning of the Australian school year and again six months later.

This allowed researchers to examine associations between changes in flourishing and a wide range of school experiences.

Laughter in school

None of what follows is surprising, perhaps. But measured in an empirical way, it perhaps gives weight to what many of us would consider obvious without having the means to prove it.

Of all the school-based practices considered, the largest increase in flourishing was associated with laughing with other students. Students who reported doing so at least monthly showed a 22 per cent increase in flourishing scores between the two waves.

Next came a sense of playfulness, associated with a 17 per cent increase. Activities strengthening social relationships came in at 11 per cent. Teachers incorporating humour into lessons was associated with an increase of around 9 per cent.

Physical activity, active learning, meaningful projects, free time with other students, group work, sport and outdoor learning all featured. Yet sitting above almost everything else are laughter, playfulness and relationships.

There is something here that schools would be wise to pay attention to. We have become increasingly sophisticated at measuring what goes wrong.

We count absences, behaviour points, suspensions, exclusions, detentions, removals and safeguarding concerns. Much of that data is necessary.

But if we are serious about the government’s proposed shift towards flourishing as outlined in its Every Child Achieving and Thriving plan, then we may need to become equally interested in measuring what is going right. Do pupils have friends? Do they feel known by adults? Is there space in the school day that is not relentlessly purposeful but where they can be playful just for fun?

The Australian researchers recommend that schools measure relationships and “relational proximity”, and cultivate a culture of “joy, fun and enjoyment” among pupils and staff.

Behaviour and belonging

None of this requires lower expectations. A flourishing school is not one in which pupils can do whatever they like.

Calm classrooms, sensible boundaries and consequences for poor behaviour are part of creating a community in which everyone can flourish. But perhaps behaviour is best understood as one part of school culture rather than its principal measure of success.

After all, the UK government says that between 2014 and 2022 the proportion of secondary students saying that they liked school “a lot” halved, while students’ reported sense of belonging fell by more than 20 percentage points.

That should concern us at least as much as any behaviour statistics. The challenge for schools is to balance the two - strong behaviour, strong belonging.

As such, somewhere among our dashboards showing attendance, attainment and behaviour, perhaps there should be room for one rather less conventional question: how much did pupils laugh in school today?

Luke Ramsden is head at St John’s College Cardiff