Tuesday, March 30, 2010
What have a quarter of a million English school children got to tell us?
The results of the Tell Us 4 survey have been released this month.
Since 2007, there has been a national survey in England of the views of children and young people on their lives, their school and where they live. The Tell Us Survey was originally developed by Ofsted but since 2009 has been managed by the DCSF and is conducted and evaluated by the NFER. Children in years 6, 8, 10 from every local authority in England (121) take part in the survey each year by completing a questionnaire online via a dedicated TellUs website.
The survey focuses on the Every Child Matters outcomes and provides feedback to inform policy and practice at a local and a national level. Each local authority receives a report analysing the feedback from children in their specific area. Schools are also sent a summary of their results. For the first time this year schools and local authorities were able to add extra questions (from a question bank) for the children in their school area to answer alongside the national survey. The time of the survey was also moved for TellUs 4 from the summer to the autumn term, following feedback about timing and examination schedules.
Tell Us 4 was conducted in October 2009 with 253,755 responses from children in 3,699 schools received. The number of schools taking part in the survey doubled from the previous Tell Us 3 survey. The final report of the results was published this month. (March 2010)
Key Findings across the age range and the five ECM areas. (Be Healthy; Stay Safe; Enjoy and Achieve; Make a Positive Contribution and Achieve Economic Well-being. )
*Most children and young people feel happy about life, have good friends and are positive about their school in terms of giving them useful skills and knowledge, and giving them feedback on their progress.
• The majority of children and young people plan to remain in learning and about six out of ten intend to go on to higher education in future.
• Although some children and young people experience bullying, which is often at least weekly for those who do, most feel that their school deals well with bullying.
• Many children and young people are active both during and after school and at the weekends, particularly boys, and say that they eat some fruit and vegetables typically three to four pieces a day.
• The majority of young people do not smoke or take drugs and the majority of those who have tried alcohol do not get drunk regularly.
• Around three out of five children and young people say that they participate in group activities led by an adult and around half are satisfied with parks and play areas.
Looking at some key areas in more detail.
Physical health. The survey found most children reported that they had eaten fruit and vegetables the previous day, which was broadly similar to the Tell Us 3 in 2008. The children who ate the most fruit and vegetables tended to be the children who reported they were active in and out of school.
Boys were more likely than girls to report being physically active, especially in break times at school. The majority of children said they had received helpful information about being and staying healthy from school and 25% reported worrying about being healthy.
Consumption of alcohol and smoking was not widespread across the children and young people, although both did increase with age. Overall, 51%of children and young people said they had never had an alcoholic drink and77% had never smoked. 88% said they had never taken drugs.
Emotional Health.
Over 80% of children and young people said they had someone they could talk to if they had worries but 20% said they had no-one they felt they could share their worries with. Children and young people who considered themselves disabled were more likely to feel they could not confide in family and friends. The most common worries for children and young people were about education and their future.
Just under half of children and young people reported that they had been bullied at school at some point in their lives (half of those had been bullied within the last year, 20% in the last four weeks ) and 20% reported experiencing bullying outside of school.
Overall, 29% of children and young people said they had been bullied at some point in the last year
The majority of children felt their school dealt with bullying well (59%) including those who had experienced bullying themselves. This figure had risen from 35% in 2008 survey.
About 90% of the children and young people said they felt safe in school and on their way there and back. Slightly fewer, 80% felt safe where they lived.
Being Listened to.
The survey revealed a range of experiences in regard to children and young people feeling they are being listened to in school.
About 1/3 said they felt their views were listened to ( at least a little)
About 1/3 said they felt their view were rarely or never listened to
About ¼ said that they had not given their ideas and views to others in school.
The most common way for children and young people to be given the opportunity to give their views was through a questionnaire.
!/4 of the children and young people had not been asked to take part in any consultation in their school in the last year.
The majority of children and young people were positive about their school giving them useful skills, knowledge and feedback on how they were doing. However, satisfaction with school and teachers tended to decrease as children and young people got older. Nearly three quarters (73 per cent) of Year 6 children agreed that teachers made their lessons fun and interesting, compared to around a third of young people in Years 8 and ten (36 per cent and 30 per cent respectively).
Children and young people increasingly worried about school work and exams as they got older, with 41 per cent of children in Year 6 reporting this, compared to 47 per cent and 61 per cent in Years 8 and 10 respectively.
At the end of the survey the children and young people were asked for the top three things which would make their life better and the most popular answers were:
More places where I can go to spend time with my friends 42%
More interesting school lessons 36%
More help to do better at school 23%
Visit the Tell Us website to view the questionnaires the children and young people were given and to view the results in more detail click here.