Lessons Learned for Successful School Collaborations
It’s 8:30 am. The morning bell rings, signalling the start of another busy school day. Students shuffle in, some bleary-eyed from oversleeping, and others won’t make school today due to illness. My key school contact—essential to the day’s research activities—has been pulled away to manage a student crisis. The room we were scheduled to use has been taken over by a teacher in need of extra space. To top it off, exam season is in full swing and the students are feeling the pressure to maximise their study time.
This isn’t just an isolated bad day – it’s the day-to-day reality of collaborating with schools.
For researchers, schools provide a unique opportunity to study adolescent development in a natural setting, offering insights into wellbeing, relationships, and cognitive growth. Schools help foster many key life skills including interpersonal relationships, problem-solving, decision-making, and managing emotions, making them ideal environments for research. However, schools can also be unpredictable, with shifting priorities driven by the needs of students, staff, and the broader community involved with the school such as parents and carers.
For schools, participating in research offers exciting opportunities for both student and staff development. Participation is often driven by a staff member with a particular interest in the research topic. However, staff are often not allocated time for additional projects amongst their demanding schedules, making it difficult for staff to manage competing priorities. Engaging with research and understanding how evidence can inform decisions empowers schools to make the best choices for their students. As highlighted by the Education Endowment Foundation, leveraging research findings can help schools adopt evidence-based practices that improve outcomes for pupils.
I am a research project manager from University College London. I have spent the past 10 years working in partnership with schools in a research capacity, including recruiting over 200 secondary schools for The Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study (SCALES), a longitudinal study of child language development. Recently, I’ve been managing Building Resilience Through Socio-Emotional Training (ReSET) – a study to develop and test a new preventative mental health intervention for adolescents, funded as part of the UKRI AMHDM initiative discussed in this article series. Over this time, I’ve experienced a lot of challenges working with schools. On the other hand, I’ve also learned how to face these challenges head-on to form successful research collaborations, which can lead to benefits for young people, school staff, and researchers.
How can we successfully connect Classrooms and Research?
Build your brand
Recruiting for a research project is surprisingly similar to marketing – you need your project to stand out. Start with an attractive logo, a cohesive colour scheme, and a memorable, catchy acronym. These elements make your project easy to remember. Where possible, including adolescents during the early planning stages can help tailor materials to a younger audience and boost long-term engagement. What resonates with them? What captures their interest? This collaborative approach, known as co-production, often uses the insights of experts by experience. For example, consulting young people with mental health experiences can help design relevant and appropriate materials for adolescent mental health studies.
Do your background research
Fortunately, we are often met with enthusiasm when recruiting schools for research projects. Student wellbeing, in particular, is at the forefront of both Government and school priorities, so participating in mental-health-related projects attracts a lot of initial attention. However, as researchers, ensuring that each school is a ‘good fit’ is our priority. How well does each school align with the goals of your project? If the fit isn’t quite right, it might be challenging to make the collaboration successful. Do your background research. What are the demographics of the students? Where is the school located? What is the school population? You can find key information about schools on their website or through their latest OFSTED reports.
Plan ahead
Assessing risks effectively helps to ensure a project runs smoothly. For instance, in schools, research sessions might clash with exams, student absences, or school trips. Sometimes, school staff are unaware of these events until they happen. Asking staff to check calendars for the students involved can help to prevent some of these difficulties, but not all of them. Checking ‘the school day’ and school calendars (often available on school websites) beforehand can highlight potential clashes, reducing the need to return another day.
Sending a simple reminder email a day or two before your visit, to confirm all the details, can also help ensure that things go smoothly. Nonetheless, having a contingency plan can save you a lot of time and reduce stress in the long run!
Don't put all your eggs in one basket
Unfortunately, many factors can affect a school’s ability to commit to a project and, despite initial enthusiasm, it’s not always practically possible to proceed with a collaboration. One helpful tool to ensure that schools understand the commitment of a project is an informal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which outlines expectations for both the research team and the school.
In addition to the MOU, it’s important to set realistic expectations of the commitment. Erring on the side of caution and over-estimating the commitment can help schools allocate the necessary resources and prepare for the workload, rather than being caught off guard with unexpected tasks later down the line. This also helps to build trust and good relationships from the outset, to ensure a smoother long-term collaboration.
Creating mutually beneficial relationships
Recognising and appreciating the time and effort that staff dedicate to supporting research can promote goodwill and create advantages for both sides. Some ideas to enhance collaboration include:
Honorariums — Many schools operate on tight budgets, and financial contributions can help to enhance resources for students in need or fund additional staffing time to help run the project.
Careers Talks, Work Experience, or Educational Workshops — Schools welcome opportunities that expose students to a variety of career paths and offer hands-on experience to develop skills for their future careers.
Newsletters and Dissemination of Findings — Sharing updates on research findings and their practical implications can help schools develop evidence-based practices to improve student wellbeing.
Acknowledgement of participation — Schools benefit from engaging in cutting-edge initiatives. Recognising their participation, such as by being named on a project website or in media, can showcase their important role in the work, enhancing their reputation.
It’s clear how mutually beneficial collaborations between research and educational teams can be, despite the challenges that can unfold. Through transparent communication, flexibility, and an understanding of each other’s goals and schedules, researchers can overcome these challenges. In the long term, the benefits of these collaborations can massively outweigh the difficulties in the delivery of the research.
As a researcher in schools, each day brings unique challenges, keeping me on my toes. But the successes make it all worthwhile. For instance, SCALES was the UK’s first longitudinal study to track language development in a large, inclusive cohort of children throughout primary school, providing vital insights into the prevalence and impact of language difficulties. ReSET is breaking new ground as the first preventative school-based mental health intervention for adolescents that targets both emotion processing skills and social relationships — key factors in resilience and vulnerability.
Stay tuned for results later in 2025!
Website: https://resetproject.co.uk
