Abstract
Frequent mobility has been linked to poorer educational attainment. We investigated the association between moving home and moving school frequently and the early childhood formal educational achievement. We carried out a cohort analysis of 121,422 children with anonymised linked records. Our exposure measures were: 1) the number of residential moves registered with a health care provider, and 2) number of school moves. Our outcome was the formal educational assessment at age 6–7. Binary regression modeling was used to examine residential moves within the three time periods: 0 – <1 year; 1 – <4 years and 4 – <6 years. School moves were examined from age 4 to age 6. We adjusted for demographics, residential moves at different times, school moves and birth related variables. Children who moved home frequently were more likely not to achieve in formal assessments compared with children not moving. Adjusted odds ratios were significant for 3 or more moves within the time period 1 –<4 years and for any number of residential moves within the time period 4–<6 years. There was a dose response relationship, with increased odds ratios with increased frequency of residential moves (2 or more moves at 4–<6 years, adjusted odds ratio 1.16 (1.03, 1.29). The most marked effect was seen with frequent school moves where 2 or more moves resulted in an adjusted odds ratio of 2.33 (1.82, 2.98). This is the first study to examine the relationship between residential and school moves in early childhood and the effect on educational attainment. Children experiencing frequent mobility may be disadvantaged and should be closely monitored. Additional educational support services should be afforded to children, particularly those who frequently change school, in order to help them achieve the expected educational standards.
Highlights
Moving home is one of the most stressful life events in adults and is often ranked with illness, loss of employment and divorce
In contrast to the findings of some United Kingdom (UK) studies [4,7,8], an analysis of educational achievement in relation to residential and school mobility illustrated that residential mobility in urban South African children had no detrimental effect on educational outcomes [9]
Individual-level anonymised data on these children were obtained from numerous sources : General Practice data, the Welsh Demographic Service (WDS) which is a continually updated record of children living within Wales, community child health records from the National Community and Child Health Database (NCCHD), births and deaths from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), inpatient and outpatient data from the Patient Episode Database for Wales (PEDW), congenital anomalies from the Congenital Anomaly Register and Information Services (CARIS), free school meal entitlement and environmental data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) and formal educational data from the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC)
Summary
Moving home is one of the most stressful life events in adults and is often ranked with illness, loss of employment and divorce. The impact of residential moves on educational attainment in children is less apparent. Studies that evaluated the effect of school moves largely report a negative impact on educational outcomes, at secondary school level [4,5,6]. Most researchers agree that moving (residential and school) affects social relationships that are important to academic achievement [10]. This relationship is complex and it has been suggested that most of the negative effect is due to preexisting differences between movers and non-movers [10]
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