For the first time since 1990 a major survey of young people’s health and wellbeing has found that teenage girls are now less likely than teenage boys to report liking school “a lot” - and it also reveals that overall satisfaction with school has hit a low.

The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study - carried out in Scotland in 2022, with the results published today - shows that overall just 18 per cent of boys and 15 per cent of girls say they like school “a lot”. In 1990 23 per cent of boys and 33 per cent of girls reported liking school a lot.

The latest survey results also marked the first time boys had been more positive about school than girls.

At age 11 girls were still more positive about school than boys in 2022, but not at age 13 and 15.

The HBSC study has been conducted every four years in Scotland since 1990 and focuses on young people attending school, aged 11, 13 and 15. Today’s results are based on a nationally representative sample of 4,388 young people.

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The report states: “Around one in six young people (16 per cent) reported that they liked school a lot. Since 1990 girls have always been more positive about school than boys but in 2022 13-year-old girls reported liking school less than boys. Between 1994 and 2018 there was little change in the proportion of young people who liked school a lot but there were decreases in 2022 compared with 2018 (particularly for girls, down from 27 to 15 per cent).”

Meanwhile, the proportion of adolescents who feel some or a lot of pressure from school work has been increasing since 2006, and that trend continued last year. The proportion of girls who feel some or a lot of pressure jumped from 45 per cent to 56 per cent, widening the gap between girls and boys.

The report says that better relationships with school staff are “associated with positive subjective wellbeing”, and since 2010 teacher support has been measured by the survey.

The proportion of adolescents reporting high teacher support increased between 2010 and 2018 for both girls and boys.

However, the report says: “Since 2018, there have been decreases in teacher support across ages and gender. The largest decreases were seen in 11-year-old girls and 13-year-old boys and girls.”

While perceived teacher support dropped between 2018 and 2022, the proportion of adolescents reporting high classmate support has been decreasing slowly since 2010 for boys and girls.

On the question of how pupil responses are influenced by family background, the report says: “Young people from more affluent families were more likely to say they liked school a lot and report higher levels of support from their classmates. However, perceived teacher support, schoolwork pressure and school-related stress did not vary by family affluence.”

In 2022 young people taking part in the survey were also asked about their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions. In 2020 and 2021 Scottish schools were forced to shut to most pupils because of the pandemic and external national exams were cancelled.

The respondents said the three most negatively affected (quite negatively or very negatively) aspects of life were mental health (38 per cent), school performance (34 per cent) and physical activity (29 per cent). These three aspects of life were the most negatively rated across nearly all age and gender groups, with older girls also mentioning diet (joint third for 13-year-olds and second for girls aged 15).

In the wake of the pandemic support for pupils’ mental health has been a key focus for schools.

The report states that “trends in young people’s mental health are both striking and concerning, with some outcomes, such as confidence and happiness, being at their lowest point in decades”.

It adds: “In 2022 the lowest levels of confidence in 28 years were observed for both boys and girls.”

In 2022 only 30 per cent of girls reported often or always feeling confident (down from 57 per cent in 1994 and 42 per cent in 2018).

Meanwhile, in 2022 some 56 per cent of boys reported often or always feeling confident (down from 73 per cent in 1994 and 60 per cent in 2018).

The full survey report also covers physical activity, sleep, electronic media use, substance use and diet.

Some more positive findings included that levels of fruit consumption are the highest in 20 years and since 1998 levels of drunkenness have declined steadily and are now at their lowest in 32 years.

However, while lifetime cigarette smoking is at its lowest level in 32 years, vaping is now more common than smoking cigarettes, with almost one in five (18 per cent of) adolescents reporting having used an e-cigarette at least once in their lifetime.

Lead author Jo Inchley, from the social and public health sciences unit at the University of Glasgow, said the study helps policymakers “to better understand the challenges young people face, recognise the broader impact of the pandemic on their lives, and look at areas where more support and investment is needed”.