Would you like to know what your pupils think about reading and writing?

From 16th November to 4th December we are going to run an online survey to explore attitudes towards reading and writing. This survey is a re-run of a similar influential survey we conducted in 2005 with over 8000 pupils. Now we would like to know what, if anything, has changed in the last 5 years.

In addition, we would like to take the opportunity to explore the link between attitudes and attainment. Considering that many children and young people know their reading and writing levels, we would include these two questions in an amended questionnaire.

Alternatively, if you think that your pupils will not know their reading and writing level and you would like to provide that information yourself, then we will provide another version of the questionnaire that asks your pupils’ name so that we can link up the questionnaire data with your attainment data.

In both cases, this information will be handled confidentially, and any personal and identifiable information will be coded and removed.

But don’t worry if you are not happy with providing us with attainment data, although we would love you to. An identical questionnaire that explores reading and writing attitudes without attainment questions or name question is also available.

We are currently inviting schools to take part, and have space for many schools to get involved. We are looking for 9 to 16-year old boys and girls from a variety of socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. You will need to provide your pupils with access to the online survey and we will do the rest. It should take your pupils about 20-25 minutes to fill in the survey.

To sum up, you can choose to do one of three surveys:

1) simple reading and writing attitude survey (without attainment data or name field)
2 ) reading and writing attitude survey with 2 attainment questions for pupils to fill in
3) reading and writing attitude survey with name field and you will be required to send us the reading and writing attainment data for the pupils taking part

In exchange for your help in plugging a gap in our knowledge base, we are going to provide you with a school-specific report that will outline some of the basic findings for your school.

If you are interested in participating in this exciting survey, then please email me, Christina Clark, at christina.clark@literacytrust.org.uk to let me know that you are interested (with the name of your school, the email that is best to send the link to the online survey to and what type of survey you would be happy for your pupils to complete) no later than 5th November 2009. I will then shortly thereafter send you a link to a school-specific survey and some handy guidelines.