Information for Headteachers and Governors

What is this research study about, and why does it matter? Leaders and teachers in England’s schools must engage complex issues of diversity in the curriculum and societal polarisation with pupils in a politically impartial way. There has been lots of public debate about freedom of speech in higher education. But there has been little focus on how well-prepared young people are to understand and engage on social issues that may affect them before adulthood, and how supported schools are to help them. The main goal of this ground-breaking study is to identify the factors that can help or create barriers to young people understanding and expressing themselves on race and faith equality issues in schools and in other contexts in England. To find out more, check out our video about the study on our homepage.

Why are certain schools invited to take part? We are inviting a select number of state-funded secondary schools across England to take part in our surveys of all Year 10 pupils and teachers in their schools. Schools are randomly selected from the DfE schools database for invitation to take part in the study. If your school is invited, it is because the school meets the criteria to help us include different kinds of schools that are representative of the pupils in one of the nine regions of England. The pupil and teacher surveys have been trialled with other Year 10 pupils and teachers. The surveys are focused on Year 10 pupils and teachers as this is a particularly important time for the development of young people’s civic, social and political awareness.

What’s the benefit for a school to take part? The school will receive a confidential certificate of survey participation, which the school may choose to demonstrate as evidence of engaging with school improvement or evaluation goals. We will also provide each school with a bespoke report which gives you information on the school’s anonymised Year 10 pupils’ responses compared with the entire surveyed Year 10 population in England. We will also give participating schools access to a dedicated resource bank which teaching colleagues can use to support teaching equality and citizenship, and where staff can take free online research training courses. We also aim to work with all education stakeholders in England to translate our findings into education supports and policy change where needed.

Is the survey confidential? Yes, schools, pupils and teachers will not be named and we will not be publishing survey data from any schools or people individually. We will scan each survey and inform individual schools if we note that a pupil has anonymously indicated they, or another are at risk of harm, but of course we cannot identify who the individual pupil is.

Who is advising on this study? The study is supported by an Advisory Group including members from the Unicef Rights Respecting Schools Programme, Birmingham City Council, brap Equality and Human Rights Charity, and teachers and academics from across England. The study is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and ethical approval for the study has been granted by University of Birmingham.

Where will I find out about the study results? We will publish our main study findings in a project report on our website, and share them in an online stakeholder launch event which you will be invited to. We will also share links to open access academic journal articles and headline national survey results from the study on our website. You can follow us on social media (@handle) to find out when the results will be out. We will also email you with key findings, unless you tell us you’d rather not receive them.

Who else can I contact outside the project if I need to raise an issue with it? You can contact the Head of the School of Education, Prof Deborah Youdell at d.youdell@bham.ac.uk