The Tell Us 3 survey was a survey of children and young people across England, asking their views about their local area, and including questions covering the five Every Child Matters outcomes.
The survey was carried out in Spring 2008. A sample of schools was selected within each local authority, representing the different types of schools in each area. The schools were then
provided with guidance detailing how to select pupils to take part in the survey.
The report presents the questions in the same way they were presented to respondents. The questions were developed through cognitive testing with children, to ensure they understood
the questions and answered them in a meaningful way. This means that some of the questions, such as self-defining a disability, may not give data consistent with ‘standard’ definitions.
The responses from the survey were weighted to ensure that the report at local authority and national level is representative of the population of Year 6, 8 and 10 children within that
area in terms of the following characteristics: gender, proportion of children eligible for free school meals in the school (as a proxy for deprivation) and type of school. Population data for
2007 from the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) was used to derive the weights, and the number of children attending Pupil Referral Units is obtained from the 2007 School Level
Annual School Census (SLASC).
The Local Authority Report
The local authority report provides data for all the questions asked at both local authority and national level. Where insufficient numbers of pupils or schools took part in a local authority, their
results are not presented at local authority level. Where there are insufficient responses in one age group, the local authority report excludes this age group. Data for these local
authorities is not weighted and no statistical testing is carried out for comparison against national results. Also, in some cases the response rate is relatively low. Results have been reported
for a local authority wherever possible, where there are sufficient responses to provide some useful evidence. This should be taken into account when interpreting the results. All responses are included in the national report.
Sample characteristics (Section 1: About you)
This section gives details of the demographic characteristics of respondents to the survey (i.e. unweighted sample information). The rest of the survey data has been weighted, to account for any disproportionality between the sample and the population.
The five Every Child Matters Outcome sections (2: Being healthy, 3: Staying safe, 4: Enjoying and achieving, 5: Making a positive contribution, 6: Achieving economic well-being)
Data at local authority level within these sections of the report has been weighted to take account of differences from our sample population to the local authority population in terms of gender,type of school and free school meals eligibility (as a proxy for deprivation).
Where a difference between the local authority figure and the national figure is statistically significant, the cell is highlighted. This will indicate that the result obtained by this analysis is
significantly different to the national average (at the 95% level). Where it is clear that there is a positive or negative outcome of the significant difference between the local authority figure and the national figure, the local authority figure is traffic-lighted either green or red respectively. If there is a difference but does not necessarily have a clear positive or negative outcome then the local authority figure is coloured grey. Local authorities with incomplete data for all year groups have not had significance testing applied. This is due to the unequal basis of comparison between the local authority and national figures.
Questions which were only asked of secondary school children are identified after the question as such (YEAR 8 & 10 ONLY).
Further details of the survey design and methodology can be found in the technical report.