Information for schools: cohort 2023

Information for schools that have been invited to take part in the evaluation.

Overview of the research

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) is carrying out research to evaluate the effectiveness of Send Me a Pic? (SMaP), an education resource that aims to develop young people’s knowledge and awareness of what nude image based abuse is, its impacts on victims/survivors, and appropriate strategies to respond to these situations. The evaluation will assess the impact of the SMaP education resource delivered to Year 8 and Year 9 pupils in secondary schools in England during the spring term of 2024.

We have been asked to carry out this evaluation by the National Crime Agency (NCA), an independent government body that developed the SMaP education resource.

What is SMaP?

The SMaP education resource comprises four 45-minute lessons for children aged 11 to 14, to be delivered by teachers who have responsibility for relationships and sex education (RSE). It uses short film clips of simulated text-based conversations between young people to introduce and navigate hypothetical situations of nude image-sharing.

The lessons support young people to meet the following objectives:

• Lesson 1: To recognise healthy and unhealthy behaviour when sharing nude images and learn about the services and people to contact if in need of support.
• Lesson 2: To recognise situations of nude image based abuse and identify strategies to resist peer pressure to engage in this behaviour.  
• Lesson 3: To identify the pressures and influences people may experience when sharing nudes in relationships and understand that it’s abusive to pressure or manipulate someone into sharing a nude image.
• Lesson 4: To challenge views and behaviours relating to non-consensual nude image sharing in groups and support the person in the image to seek help.

What lesson plans and materials are provided for schools delivering SMaP?

Schools will be provided with detailed lesson plans for each of the four SMaP lessons. The SMaP education resource includes all materials needed for lesson delivery, including:

• Training video for teachers on how to deliver the SMaP lessons effectively.
• Resource pack including introduction and guidance for safe delivery, four lesson plans and accompanying worksheets.
• Four PowerPoint presentation packs (one per lesson) with 9 short film clips embedded.

How much will participation in the evaluation of SMaP cost my school?

Nothing. The SMaP education resource pack will be provided to your school for free, and all costs relating to the evaluation will be covered by the NatCen research team.

All schools that complete the evaluation activities will be given £500 as a thank you.

The NCA will also provide each school with up to three complimentary places on Understanding Online Child Sexual Abuse course for teachers and one place for a teacher to attend a CEOP Education Ambassador training course, worth a total value of £600. The NCA will contact schools to arrange spaces on these courses after the SMaP evaluation activities are complete in summer 2024.

What is the purpose of the evaluation?

The aims of the evaluation are to:

• Assess whether SMaP education resource has any effect on pupils’ knowledge, understanding, and behaviours relating to nude image sharing and nude image based abuse.
• Understand the factors that impact successful implementation of the SMaP education resource.

By participating in this research, your school will make an important contribution to our understanding of the efficacy of the SMaP education resource in influencing young people’s understanding and behaviour relating to nude image based abuse. This will help the NCA to ensure the teaching materials it develops and provides to schools are as useful as possible in contributing to a reduction in the harm that young people may encounter.

How will SMaP be evaluated?

In this study, we will test the impact of the SMaP education resource, using a randomised control trial (RCT) design. RCTs are one of the most robust ways to work out if a programme has an impact.

The RCT evaluation approach means that your school will be randomly assigned to one of two groups:

• The treatment group: schools in this groups will receive and deliver the SMaP education resource.
• The control group: school in this group will deliver ‘business as usual’ RSE lessons. If your school is assigned to the control group, you will be provided with the SMaP education resource and be able to attend the free training courses after the evaluation activities have been completed in the summer of 2024. 

Please note that schools cannot choose which of the two groups they will be assigned to. To ensure valid comparisons can be drawn across control and treatment groups, which is necessary to identify any effects of the SMaP education resource, assignment to each group must be done at random. Random assignment of schools to control and treatment groups is therefore essential to the evaluation. It is important that schools, pupils and parents understand and consent to the random allocation process.

To assess the impact of the SMaP education resource, pupils taking part in the study will complete a short online survey at two timepoints in order to measure any change in key outcomes. Similarly, the lead teacher in all participating schools will be asked to complete a short online survey at two timepoints. This will gather information about the usual teaching practice for RSE, views on facilitating the SMaP education resource (if applicable), and the number of SMaP sessions completed (if applicable).

To understand more about the implementation of the SMaP education resource, as well as pupils’ and teachers’ views and experiences of the lessons, we will also invite a small number of schools in the treatment group to take part in some additional evaluation activities. These will include up to two lesson observations, up to two teacher interviews, and two small pupil focus groups in each of the selected schools.

My school already delivers SMaP lessons – can we still take part?

Yes! If your school has delivered the previous version of the SMaP lesson resource, your school can still take part in the evaluation. However, you must agree not to deliver the old resources during the 2023/2024 academic year and must only deliver the updated lessons. The new resource comprises four lessons and will be provided to you by NatCen. It is also important for you to know that only year groups that have not received the old SMaP lessons can take part in the evaluation.

What will taking part in the evaluation involve?

• NatCen researchers will carry out a range of evaluation activities from the autumn term of 2023 until the summer term of 2024.
• All schools in the RCT, regardless of whether they are in the treatment or control group, will complete evaluation activities. This is to allow for comparison between the control and treatment groups, which is necessary to identify any effects of the SMaP education resource.
• All schools will appoint a key contact person from the school (‘lead teacher’) to liaise with NatCen. Teachers will be provided with tailored information sheets.
• All schools will share the number of classes in Years 8 and 9 and their class name with NatCen. If there are more than two eligible class per year group, the NatCen evaluation team will randomly select up to two class per year group to be included in the evaluation.
• NatCen will provide schools with information letters for parents/carers that set out details of the evaluation activities and what their child’s participation will involve. Schools will share these information sheets with the parents/carers of eligible pupils in classes that are selected for the evaluation. Parents/carers will have two weeks to opt their child out of the evaluation. This deadline will be clearly specified in the letters.
• After the opt-out period has passed, NatCen will also provide tailored information sheets for pupils, which schools will be asked to disseminate.
• Following the opt-out period, the lead teacher from each school will identify pupils that are eligible to take part in the evaluation. Eligible pupils will be in Year 8 or Year 9 in the school year 2023/2024 and will have not been opted out of the evaluation by their parents (as above).
• The lead teacher will securely share the name, surname, date of birth, gender, and unique pupil number (UPN) of all eligible pupils in classes selected for the evaluation whose parents have not opted them out of the evaluation with NatCen. This information will be used for linking baseline and endline pupil surveys.
• Following this, NatCen researchers will randomly assign schools to either a treatment or a control group.
• Schools that are randomly assigned to the treatment group will receive the SMaP education resource materials and be asked to deliver SMaP to their Year 8 and Year 9 classes during the spring of 2024. Important note: schools randomly assigned to the treatment group may deliver SMaP to all Year 8 and Year 9 classes during the spring of 2024; however, NatCen will only be evaluating the impact of SMaP on the class/es selected for the evaluation.
• Schools that are randomly assigned to the control group will not receive the SMaP education resource materials until summer 2024. Until this time, control group schools will continue to deliver RSE lessons as usual. This allows the evaluation to compare outcomes between SMaP and ‘business as usual’ RSE delivery during the spring 2024. 
• Participating schools in both treatment and control groups will be asked to support the following evaluation activities: 
  • Pupil survey: School leads will be asked to facilitate the administration of a short online pupil survey to be completed at two time-points.
  • Teacher survey: School leads will be asked to complete a short online survey at two timepoints.
• A small number of schools in the treatment group will also be invited to take part in some additional evaluation activities. These schools will be asked to work with NatCen researchers to facilitate the following activities:
  • Observations of SMaP lessons. Natcen researchers will visit the school to observe one or two SMaP lessons. The purpose of the observations is to understand the programme and to see how well it works in practice; they will not assess teaching performance or be used for any purpose other than the research.
  • Pupil discussion groups: NatCen research staff will conduct up to two focus group discussions with pupils after all SMaP lessons have been delivered in the school. The focus groups will explore understand pupils’ views and experiences of the lessons.
  • Interviews with school leads: Interviews with school leads will be conducted to explore teachers’ views and experiences of delivering the SMaP education resource. These interviews will be conducted face-to-face at the school if these teachers are available on the day of the pupil focus groups. Alternatively, they can be conducted remotely by telephone or via Microsoft Teams. If more than one teacher delivers the SMaP education resource, we will be able to interview up to two teachers per school.
• Interviews and focus groups will be conducted by a team of NatCen researchers, who are experienced at carrying out research with professionals and young people on a range of sensitive topics.

Evaluation timeline

Is taking part voluntary?

Yes. No-one has to be a part of the research if they do not want to. Even if your school has agreed to take part, individual staff and pupils will be able to decide themselves whether or not they want to take part and will be able to change their minds as set out on the relevant information sheets.

Will my school be anonymous in the research?

Yes. The identities of the participating schools, staff and students will be known only to the research team, and identifiable information will not be included in any research outputs (such as the report or presentations).

Will the information collected remain confidential?

The only exception to confidentiality is if a researcher becomes aware of a risk of serious harm to a participant or identifiable other, including harm that has already been caused. In this case we would have to disclose this information. Exactly who it would be shared with will depend on the nature and seriousness of the information disclosed but may involve a number of agencies including the school, the local authority and the police. If it is decided that information needs to be disclosed, details about the individual(s) involved and nature of the concern will be shared even if participant(s) withdraw from the study.

What happens to the data collected for this project?

The information that we collect will be used for evaluation purposes only. We will not use the names of schools, staff members, or pupils when reporting our findings. All information will be treated confidentially. All data will be transferred and stored securely in accordance with GDPR. A privacy notice setting out further detail about how research data will be processed, stored, and deleted is available at natcen.ac.uk/sendmeapic/privacy notice.  

What next?

If you are happy for your school to participate in this evaluation, you can access and complete the memorandum of understanding (MoU) via the link in the email that you have received. The MoU will provide more information on the evaluation activities as well the responsibilities of schools and NatCen. Please read the MoU carefully before agreeing to take part.

Alternatively, a member of the NatCen research team may be in touch via telephone within the next few weeks. The aim of these calls will be to gather expressions of interest. If you indicate that you would like your school to be part of the evaluation, you will be sent another email containing a link to the MoU.

Please note that it may not be possible to include all schools that express an interest in taking part in the evaluation.

Who do I contact if I have any questions?

If you would like more information about the evaluation of SMaP, please do get in touch with the NatCen team at smap-evaluation@natcen.ac.uk or by calling 0808 168 8519.