This document summarizes the research project of a group of young researchers from different schools in Barrow. They investigated whether young people in years 5-7 have aspirations, and what those aspirations are. Their key findings were: - The majority of pupils and parents said young people do have aspirations, though some teachers were less certain. - Common aspirations included careers in sports, medicine, teaching, and the creative arts. - Most pupils felt confident they could achieve their goals, though some lacked confidence. Family, practice, and encouragement helped confidence. - Pupils saw parents as most able to help aspirations, while teachers saw themselves as most able to inspire. - The researchers recommended providing more opportunities and encouragement to help

1. YOUNG RESEARCHERS!
Presentation to BPHC, 10th June 2105

2. Introduction
Today we want to
• Tell you about our story
• Share our research results
• Make some recommendations
• Try to answer questions

3. Introduction
• We are from five different schools St Georges, Greengate
Juniors, Cambridge Primary and Sacred Heart. At the first meeting it came as a
surprise to us when we had to work with people we had never met
but soon we all became good friends.
• we have been researching about aspirations.
• This is what we did.......

4. First meeting
• We met at Cambridge Primary school
• we had a surprise visit from Neil Doherty from Inspiring
Barrow, and he explained to us what he wanted us to
find out.
• The questions Neil asked us to investigate are:
Do young people in Yr 5,6 & 7 in Barrow have
aspirations, and if so, what are they and do they feel
confident that they can achieve them?

5. We explored how wanted our team
to work
5
How did we want our team to
work?
• good communication
• respect
• listening
• working together
• honesty
• trust

6. Exploring Aspirations
We explored
our own
ideas about
aspirations
by doing a
Philosophy
Enquiry

7. We started by looking at
some pictures and using
them to make our own
questions about
Aspirations
Exploring Aspirations
We chose our favourite one, which was ‘Is your
Aspiration different when you are young to
when your are older?’
When we discussed together it helped us to see
all the similar ideas.

8. Our Expectations
From our enquiry we found that
• Aspirations are a goal that you want to
achieve
• most people have them
• lots of young people want to be famous but
some people want to have a normal life
instead of fame and glamour

9. We learned
• skills, on how to be a good researcher to carry
out the research about aspirations
• that research is important because it helps us
to improve what we know about the world so
we can make good changes happen & avoid
repeating our mistakes
Research

10. Research
Next we explored what research is
We found it is a special type of ‘finding-out’
activity that is
• Systematic - which means we do things in a
planned and organised way
• Sceptical - which means we are always asking
questions!
• Ethical - which means we make sure that no-
one comes to any harm, and it is always fair
and respects everyone’s needs

11. The next step!
• After finding out about Research the next thing
we did was to make our surveys about
aspirations.
• When we planned the surveys we thought about
what questions we were going to ask. We used
what we had learned from our Enquiry about
aspirations to help us
• Then we tested the questions

12. ...by trying them out on each other

13. The next step!
Then we had to decide how we could get everyone
to do the questionnaire
• We decided it was a good idea to do a
presentation to Assembly, explaining what we are
doing
• We also wanted teachers and parents to join in.
• We sent the on-line links home and invited some
parents to do the survey after school, using i-pads

14. We all did a presentation in our own schools, to let people know
that we had put a survey on line and on paper as well

15. Kepplewray
• We went to Kepplewray to understand our
results
We worked here

16. This is us setting out from Barrow station

17. At Kepplewray first we had to make our beds

18. And then we went outside and we practiced working together as a team and
trusting each other

22. We talked about what makes a good team and what we appreciate about each other

23. The Data
• Then we went inside to start looking at our
results and trying to understand them

24. We started to tell the story of how we have worked on the Young Researchers

25. There was lots of survey data to
sort .
Some of it was graphs of what
people said,
but most of it was lots and lots of
individual answers to our open
ended questions. And each answer
was different.
It was more difficult to interpret
this data because it was all about
people’s opinions and feelings.
But we think it is the most
interesting part of our research.

26. For some questions, we took all the answers,
cut up into strips, and started to look at them
for any patterns

27. `
Then we tried to see to see if we could spot
any similarities, and put them into groups.
We counted how many was in
each group using tally charts

28. We made different tally charts of people’s answers to our questions

30. 257 Young People answered our
questionnaire. We achieved a lot more than
people would think.
36 Parents answered - to get these we sent an
internet link home with the youngest sibling.
33 Teachers responded - over half were teachers,
2 were Head Teachers, and some were Teaching
Assistants
These are the results:

31. We asked Pupils:
Do you have any aspirations or goals
in your life, that you would like to
achieve?

32. 90% of children said ‘yes’ they do have
aspirations or goals in life. That’s almost all of
them! Which confirms what we had expected at
the start
We think this tells us that most young people in
Barrow do have aspirations

33. When we asked parents the same question:
Does your child(ren) have any aspirations or goals
that they want to achieve?

34. 86% said they think their children do have
aspirations or goals they want to achieve.
We think it is interesting about 1 in 8 parents said
that their children don’t have any aspirations or
goals that they want to achieve.
It is surprising, because children have influences
from a very early age; for example Keith’s little
brother wanted to be fireman as soon as he
watched fireman Sam on TV when he was young.

35. Then we asked teachers the same question:
Do you think that children in years 5 & 6 have
aspirations or goals that they want to achieve?

36. Just 13% of them thought that ALL children have
some aspirations or goals that they want to
achieve.
Most teachers are not confident that all of their
pupils have aspirations, but the majority, 87% of
think that some or most children have aspirations.
We think this shows that teachers, parents and
children have different opinions, and that teachers
and parents both take their roles seriously.
Teachers may not think that children have learned
enough.

37. Do children in years 5 & 6 have aspirations or
goals? Teachers told us:
• it depends a lot on their home environment
• their goals are sometimes limited, short term or
unrealistic
• children are affected by a lack of opportunity or
exposure to possibility
• Children sometimes find it hard to articulate their goals

38. Some of what Teachers said:
• ‘It's difficult to have a goal if you don't know what is
possible.’
• ‘Young people’s aspirations are sometimes quite far
fetched, for things they have seen on tv, like being a pop-
star or a footballer....because it offers a lavish lifestyle.’
• ‘All young people have dreams and aspirations ....all
they require is support’

39. Parents mentioned
When we asked parents about their children's
aspirations they thought these are in...
• Careers in Sport
• Medical careers
• to ‘Get a good job’
• to ‘become a Teacher’

40. One parent with 5 children said to us
“ My 16 year old wants to be a music teacher/rock Star,
my 13 year old wants to be nurse,
my 12 year old wants to play for England women’s team,
my 8 year old wants to own their own cafe,
my 5 year old wants to be a fighter pilot...
.... and my 3 year old wants to be a Ninja Turtle : ) ”

41. We wanted to find out what young people’s
goals are so we asked them ‘What are your
Aspirations or Goals?
This was one of our main open ended
questions.
We didn’t want to give a dropdown list of
options for people to choose because we didn’t
want to influence what they told us.
Paul helped us sort the answers - these are the
main categories.

42. What are your Aspirations or Goals?
Fire / Police - Accountant - Lawyer
Creative - teacher – Digital -
archaeologist - work with Animals -
become famous - Medical - Scientist -
Improve my learning - beautician -
hairdressing - BAE - motor-biker /
racing driver - Travel - trade /
commerce

43. 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Series1
What are your Aspirations or Goals?Noofpupils
Aspiration or Goal
This graph shows how many people are interested in each
As you can see, in years 4, 5 and 6 sporting aspirations are the
most common, followed by ones that are creative.
But even though the other choices weren’t as popular, there is a
very wide range of different aspirations and goals that the
children have.

44. These are some of the things in the
main categories
becoming a professional footballer / rugby player / runner / wrestler / referee /
gymnast / tennis & table tennis player / swimmer / boxer / golfer / hockey player
Sport
Creative
Digital
Animals
being a professional artist / designer / author or writer / performer or actor / singer
/ dancer / photographer / architect / chef / working in fashion
working on You-tube / games designer / working in film
being a Vet, working for the RSPCA, with Horses

45. To make sure everyone was included in the
questionnaire we asked the people who don’t
have aspirations or goals at the moment:
‘Have you had any in the past?’

46. Nearly two thirds said they have NEVER had
any aspirations.
Just over a third said they have had aspirations
in the past, and we concluded that SOMETHING
must have happened to make them lose their
aspirations.

47. We also asked the same people without aspirations
Do you want to have them in the future?
And we found that most do want to have an
aspiration when they get older

48. We asked Pupils an important question:
How confident do you feel that you can achieve
your aspirations?
We gave a them a choice of answers:
very confident / confident / not very confident
/ not confident at all.

49. The majority of young people (80%) say they
are either confident or very confident that they
will achieve their aspirations.

50. However about one in seven, or 14% of
children, feel not very confident or not
confident at all. We hope that the findings of
our research can help those children who don’t
have aspirations or goals, or who don’t feel
confident about them.

51. We asked Parents:
How confident do you think your children are
that they can achieve their aspirations?

52. 92% of parents believe that their child is confident
or very confident that they could achieve their
goals and aspiration.
We think this shows that they know their children
quite well because about 80% of children said they
feel confident or very confident

53. We asked Pupils:
What helps you be more confident about
achieving your goals or aspirations?
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Family Practicing Friends Paise &
Encouragement
School Self Belief Watching
others / t.v. /
You tube
Series1

54. They told us that their family helps the most,
followed by practicing or gaining experience, and
having help from friends.
They also talked about praise and encouragement,
support from school, self belief, and watching
others including on tv and on-line as making them
more confident about achieving goals.

55. We asked Pupils:
Are there any people who can help you
achieve your aspirations or goals?

56. Most think that the people who can help them a
lot are their parents/carers (63%), followed closely
by other family members (58%) and friends (56%).
42% said that teachers can help them a lot. Youth
leaders were also seen as helpful, but only a little

57. We compared this to what teachers said about who
can help young people's aspirations
and they thought that they are the most important

58. And when we asked Parents the same question
they thought that they are the most important

59. The results show us that parents believe
that they themselves have the most
influence. Next, they think that teachers
can inspire children.
We think this is telling us that parents and
teachers take their roles seriously

60. When we had our Enquiry about aspirations, to
find out what are the important things to research,
we wondered whether aspirations change as you
get older, or stay the same. So we asked Pupils:
Do you think your aspirations will change as you
get older?

61. And we found that 19% of children thought
that they would change, 36% thought they
wouldn’t, but most children (45%) weren’t
sure.
It’s telling us that most young people don’t
know if there aspirations will change when
there older.

62. We asked parents the same question:
Do you think children's aspirations will
change as they get older?

63. Although only 19% of children said yes to this
question and we found that parents have a
different view
almost half of them expect their children’s
aspirations to change. About the same amount
weren’t sure whether they would change or not.

64. Answered: 32 Skipped: 0
When we asked Teachers ‘Do you think children's
aspirations change as they get older?’ We found
they are more certain that children’s aspirations
will change as they get older.

65. Opportunities or
chances
Being encouraged
Self esteem
Feeling safe
Being inspired
Experiencing success
We asked Teachers:
What do you think helps children develop aspirations
or goals?

66. Teachers’ answers included
‘Having opportunities or chances ’ is what helps
children the most to develop aspirations.
We think teachers’ opinion is important because
they’ve known lots of children as they grow up
and they know children well

67. When we asked Pupils:
How did you get you aspirations or goals? they told
these things:
From Inside
T. V. / on-line
Parents
Outside immediate family
Friends
Siblings
Out of School activity

68. and the ‘From inside’ included things like
‘Because I just like it / because I am interested in
it
Watching t.v. or you-tube clips is also important
for developing aspirations, and so are parents
and family

69. We asked Pupils:
What might stop you from having aspirations, or
from achieving your goals?
175 children answered this question. 51 of
them actually said “nothing” will stop them!
This tells us that they are already really
confident.
We printed out ALL of the answers, and found
that they were evenly split between two main
categories:

70. 46% said
“inside me”, which is things about who I am,
how I feel and think.
45%
“outside me” which is things that happen in life
that I don’t have control over

71. Summary
We’ve learned
- about research and that it is fun and important
- the majority of YP in Barrow do have or want
aspirations
- that young people think their parents are
important for helping develop aspirations
- that adults, teachers and children see their goals
differently

72. Summary
From our research we have understood that
-parents and teachers take their role of helping
young people’s aspirations seriously
-that many children see their goals coming from
somewhere ‘inside’ themselves
- some young people might have problems
stopping them from developing aspirations, but
others think nothing will stop them from following
their goals

73. Our recommendations
We recommend that
• more help is available for young people to
believe in themselves, and to have aspirations
that they follow
• young people have encouragement from
parents, teachers, and others

74. Our recommendations
• parents, teachers, and others are supported to
help them develop young people’s aspirations
• there are more opportunities for young people
to see what is possible through
- making visits and trips out of school
- through experts visiting class.
This will help them to understand that it is a large
world, and that you have to work hard for your
goals and never give up.

75. Thank you for your time!!!!
Any questions?
(For more details contact CDEC:
Paul Jenkins
paul@cdcec.org.uk
tel 01539 421602)