Promoting Mental Wellbeing in the Move from Primary to Secondary Education

The research reported on here was concerned with children considered to be at risk of disengaging with education on transition to secondary school. The research was commissioned by the Cambridgeshire Children’s Trust to try and understand the underlying issues for these children. Mental wellbeing is increasingly being seen as the business of schools with programmes that emphasise wellbeing and competence rather than illness (Weare and Markham, 2005). The concept of ‘wellbeing’ encompasses both physical and mental health. We can think of ‘mental fitness’ in a similar way to ‘physical fitness’, both contributing to wellbeing. Health promotion specialists are increasingly aware that health related behaviours are shaped and constrained by a range of social and community contexts, and that the ways in which individuals relate to wider social networks and communities have important effects on health and well-being. Neighbourhoods where people know each other and trust each other and where they have a say in the way the community is run can be a powerful support in coping with the day to day stresses of life which affect health (Morrow, 1999).