Transition from primary to secondary school represents one of the most challenging periods in students’ education (Humphrey & Ainscow, 2006). This transition is even more sensitive for the secondary school freshmen in a specific Serbian economic and social context characterized by long lasting socio-economic turmoil (Simić, Vukelić & Đorđević, 2013) and enduring and chaotic educational reform (Kovács Cerović et al., 2014). One of the consequences of such an educational reform is a new form of the final state exam at the end of primary education and a new procedure of choosing and enrolling secondary schools, which might raise additional concerns among both students and their parents.

Research evidence showed that there is a consistent decline in students’ motivation, engagement and achievement at the beginning of secondary schooling (Benner & Graham, 2009). In the course of this transition students have concerns related to their social relationships and getting familiar with new school’s routine and values (Cohen & Smerdon, 2009). Apart from this, higher level of education requires academic adaptability and resilience (Waters, Lester & Cross, 2014) resulting from higher educational expectation. As a result of these transitional concerns students’ well-being could be endangered (Coffey, 2013).

These changes in students’ behavior and emotional state, and potential risks they bring, motivate teachers and educational specialists to investigate factors that can have “protective” effect, such as teachers’ and school practices that can prevent negative consequences of the transition. In this study (which represents a part of a larger longitudinal study of consequences of enrolment in (un)desired secondary school) we focused on the effect of some personal and school-related aspects on well-being of high-school freshmen. Thus, we studied the effects of students’ academic resilience and perception of school embeddedness (as personal aspects), and, teacher and peers support (as school-related aspect), on students’ well-being in the first semester of high school.

Academic resilience can be defined as an ability to be persistent, positive and adaptive, in spite of challenges and risks that a person encounters in academic context. Academically resilient students show positive attitude during crisis (McTigue, Washburn & Liew, 2009), with transition from primary to secondary school being one of the most striking. Academic resilience is positively related to self-efficacy, mastery orientation and persistence, whereas it is negatively related to anxiety, self-handicapping and failure avoidance (Martin & March, 2006). Therefore, we expected that academically resilient students will show higher level of well-being.

In this research we defined school embeddedness as a sense of fitting the school in general or „nesting“ within the school and peer structures. We believed that students who feel agreeable at school might experience higher level of well-being than those who do not feel greeable in a new environment.

School-related aspects that we were interested in were teacher and peer support. Teaches and peers are recognized as key actors of social support network in academic context, providing different kinds of support. Research showed that teacher and peers support contribute towards learning motivation, school engagement, achievement and well-being (Flaspohler, Elfstrom, Vanderezee, Sink & Birchmeier, 2009; Malecki & Demaray, 2003; Vedder, Boekaerts & Seeger, 2005).

By investigating these specific personal and school aspects that can be systematically influenced, and by evaluating their impact on high-school freshmen’s well-being we wished to gain insight in the possible preventive practice that could be introduced as a protective measure against possible negative reactions to the transitional period.

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