About the project – Grassroots
Grassroots is an anti-bullying programme that aims to reduce bullying and conflict in schools by empowering pupils to positively impact their peers’ behaviour. This trial will be delivered by the Behavioural Insights Team.
Each school will be allocated a bespoke Research Assistant (RAs), who would have completed a three days training delivered by the project team. The project team help administer a survey asking pupils to detail which other pupils they’ve had contact with recently. The project team then uses this data to identify the best-connected pupils in each school (termed ‘social referents’), who are prioritised for inclusion in the school’s ‘seed group’ (alongside less well-connected pupils). RAs then convene each of these seed groups of approximately 30 pupils for 10 fortnightly sessions over the course of the rest of the school year.
In the sessions with ‘seeds’, RAs will help pupils to:
- Identify areas for improvement in student interactions,
- Generate possible solutions (for example activities they may do, what they might encourage their friends to do),
- Provide opportunities for action (for example weekly or fortnightly challenges),
- Make initiatives visible to others (for example putting up posters and handing out wearable items, like wristbands, to peers for prosocial behaviour),
- Help pupils use online platforms to reach others (for example videos, social media content).
About the round
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Themed grant round
Grant:A safe, positive place to learn: improving attendance and reducing exclusions
We’ve come together with the Education Endowment Foundation to jointly fund a grant round to build evidence of what works to improve attendance and reduce exclusions.
