Question: What do you do when you work in schools?

Alice Jones Bartoli answered on 13 Jun 2011:

Hi Trudi,

Right now, I’m running two different studies in schools, both of them with primary schools.
The first one is a study on why children get involved with bullying. I go into each class in the junior school and work with the whole class – I give them a description like ‘co-operative’ or ‘leader’ or ‘someone who makes up rumours and leaves people out’ and they tick all the people in their class who fit that description. After this, I work out who are the children who are rated as being difficult to get on with, and we go back into school to work with these children. So far, we have found the children who are rated as being difficult to get along with have difficulties with understanding their own emotions and the emotions of others – we can use this information to develop ways of helping children in class. We also tell teachers about our findings so that they can help the children in their class who are at risk of being excluded. A while ago, I carried out one study in my old primary school – this was a lot of fun, my old headmistress was still in charge of the school, and some of the teachers were still the same.

The second sort of study that I am running is with children who are in a special school for children with behavioural problems. We have developed a new type of treatment, and I am seeing how well it works. I go into school and work with the children directly, I test their memory and language skills, and I also want to see how their levels of literacy and numeracy might also change alongside their behaviour. I also ask teachers and parents fill in questionnaires about the children’s behaviour and I look at how behaviour changes over time.

Right now, we are interviewing parents and teachers about what has changed for them since they started with this new programme. It’s amazing to hear the positive stories, and their comments and ideas help us to make our programme even more effective in the future.