What this project is about

"Me and My School" is a research project that explores the ways schools try to help children when they feel sad, worried or troubled. The aim is to try to find out which approaches seem to be the best ways for schools to help children. To do this the project looks at all children in certain year groups in hundreds of schools across England.

2 studies are involved:

Study 1 (Longitudinal Study)

Study 1 looks at pupils in 25 areas over three years (2008-11). It is a three-year “naturalistic study”. It looks at what local areas have chosen to do to support children when they feel worried, sad or troubled. The research team looks at how the children in the different areas are doing over time (taking into account the children’s views and those of their parents and teachers) to try to see the impact of the different approaches adopted by different areas.

Study 2 (Randomised Control Trial)

Study 2 looks at pupils in a further 74 areas over the course of one year (2009-10). It involves a one year “randomised control trial” (RCT). The areas will be randomly assigned to different conditions which vary in the type of support they offer. The researchers will look at how the children in different areas are doing. The fact that areas are randomly assigned to different conditions means the research team can be more confident that any differences they find in how children are doing are the result of differences in ways schools are going about helping rather than a result of other differences between the areas.

In both studies pupils, parents and teachers will be asked to take part:

Pupils

Pupils who are in Year 4 and Year 7 at the start of each study will be asked once a year to answer multiple choice questions about their feelings and  about their school (via a computer at their school)

Parents

Parents of these pupils will be asked to answer multiple choice questions about their child once a year.

Teachers

Teachers (class or form) will be asked to comlete brief online questions about children in ther class.