Step 2: Doing your Investigation

However you decide to do your investigation remember, Grounds for Optimism is all about a real place: your school grounds. So getting outside into the real spaces and connecting with the people who use or have an interest in them is important. If time is short try to focus your investigation on activities that:

 

• encourage people to get outside and help you get to know and experience the whole site

• involve direct contact with the people whose views you are seeking

 

The example walkabout activity is a particularly useful way of ensuring that your information gathering does not become a remote exercise. This activity involves walking the whole of the site, stopping in pre-determined spaces and then leading and recording a discussion about each of the spaces. Repeating this activity with different groups of people and even at different times of the day will help to reveal how the spaces are seen and experienced differently. What do boys think? What do girls think? The upper school compared with the lower school? The site manager compared to staff, governors or parents?

 

As well as walkabouts there are many ways you might decide to do your investigation. This could involve questionnaires, leading group discussions and interviews (e.g. during staff, governor, schools council or tutor group meetings) or perhaps even events or activities that focus on recording information on plans. 

 

Whatever approaches you decide to use, remember to summarise what you discover - too much information can easily become overwhelming and difficult to explain to other people. Summarising the main points at the end of each activity will make things easier later on.

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