The aim of the research is to help teachers and school leaders meet the needs of migrant students in secondary schools, by understanding the opportunities, challenges and barriers for migrant students and their teachers. We hope that this will help migrant students to feel a part of their school community, not only now, but also for other migrant students in different countries, in the future. The project has the full support of the City of Edinburgh Council, the University of Edinburgh, and the Head Teacher of your child’s school.

In the research, we will find out about the experiences of migrant students of being at school in Scotland. We also want to compare their experiences with the experiences of students who do not have migrant backgrounds.

We will also talk to teachers, and to other adults in your child’s school, to hear about their experiences of supporting students from migrant or other backgrounds.

The project will go on until February 2023, but we will only be in your child’s school for some of the time, for a few days at a time, during three periods of about three months, over a little more than a year. 

All activities will take place in school, and during the school day. Teachers, and/or other support workers your child knows can be present during the activities, and additional support will be available, such as with language, to ensure your child can join in. Your child will not miss any important school work or commitments due to the research.

Student surveys will be administered by school staff and your child will be asked to complete a consent form to say they agree to complete the survey – they do not have to if they do not want to. If your child is invited to complete an interview they will be asked to complete a consent form, and again, if they do not want to complete an interview they will not be interviewed. Please read the rest of this information sheet for further information on the project.

You child has been invited to participate in this study because they attend a school taking part in the project and in a year group invited to take part.

We will ask all students in some year groups, including your child’s year group, to fill in an online survey. The survey takes about 20 minutes, and it will help us understand how students feel about being a part of the school community. The survey has questions about students’ engagement with learning, relationships with adults and other students in the school, about students’ attitudes towards schools, and about students’ families and backgrounds. Staff members in your child’s school will also be filling in another, different, survey. Students will be asked to complete a consent form to say they agree to complete the survey; if they do not want to complete the survey they do not have to. 

We will have longer conversations with teachers, and some students, about their experiences. If we had a conversation with your child, it would last around 30 minutes. If your child agrees, it would be video and audio-recorded (with the option not to be videoed). Students will be asked to complete a consent form to say they agree to complete an interview; if they do not want to complete an interview they do not have to.

We will also be going into some classes in the school, to see how teachers work with students, and we will talk to students and to teachers and support staff, about teaching and learning, and being part of the school community.

Student surveys will be administered by the school staff and a small number of students will be invited to participate in the interviews conducted by the researchers. You will be informed by the school when your child’s year group will be invited to fill out the survey and you will be able to let the school and/or the researchers know if you do not want your child to take part in the research by submitting the short OPT OUT form on the next page (scroll to the bottom of this page and click the next arrow) or by emailing migrant-education@ed.ac.uk. Your child will not be included in the research if you do not wish it.

As schools were not fully open at the start of the project some activities moved online, through the school. This will mean that no young person is excluded from the activities because they are out of school.

No, definitely not. While we hope that you will encourage your child to participate in the project, you may tell us that you do not wish this to happen. If you agree to your child’s participation in the project, your child is free to choose whether to participate or not. There will be no problems for you or your family, whatever you decide. 

Both you and your child will be free to withdraw your agreement to participate in the project at any time. If you would like to do this at any point, and/or if you would like us to delete any information we have about your child or raise issues and concerns about the study, please use the contact information below.

Please note that once the study is completed, the data will be anonymised and after this point, it will no longer be possible to withdraw your data.

There are no direct benefits, but by sharing your experiences with us, you will be helping Nataša Pantić and the University to better understand how staff collaboration helps to support migrant students. One of the aims of the research project is to inform the policy and practice to promote integration of migrant students in schools. In this sense, your participation will also benefit improvements in educational practice, and ultimately in student and staff educational experiences.

There are no significant risks associated with participation. There is a time commitment – the survey will take around 20 minutes and the interview will take around 30 minutes.

Information from your child will include:

- Name

- SQA number (if they do not want to enter their name in the survey) 

- IP address (when they complete the consent form and survey)

- School, year group, length of time attending current school

- Age, gender 

- Migrant status, languages spoken, country of birth, country parents were born, parents’ education

- Digital devices in the home 

Researchers will use this information to do the research or to make sure that the research is being done properly. People outside the research team who do not need to know who your child is will not be able to see your child’s name or contact details. Your child’s data will have a code number instead. We will keep all information about your child safe and secure.

If your child consents to being video and audio recorded, all recordings will be destroyed at the end of the project. Your child’s data will only be viewed by the researcher/research team and third party who need access. The third party is the interview transcription service, Maloney Administrative Services, who will review the video/audio and transcribe the content. Maloney Administrative Services will access password-protected encrypted files via the University of Edinburgh’s SharePoint, store transcripts on their own personal computer, and destroy the transcripts after they have been transcribed. All electronic data will be stored in password-protected computer files and all paper records will be stored in a locked filing cabinet. Your and/or your child’s consent information will be kept separately from their responses in order to minimise risk. 

Once we have finished the study, we will keep some of the data so we can check the results. We will write our reports in a way that no-one can work out that your child took part in the study. The University of Edinburgh will keep identifiable information about your child until it is no longer needed, for up to 3 years after the study has finished, and will keep your child’s anonymised data for a minimum of 3 years for use in future ethically approved research.

• We need to manage your child’s records in specific ways for the research to be reliable. This means that we will not be able to let you see or change the data we hold about your child.

All information given as part of the research will be kept confidentially, safely and securely. Data will primarily be kept on secure University of Edinburgh servers and by Maloney Administrative Services, specified above. Any identifying information will not be shared outside of the research team unless required by the third party contractor specified above. Identifying information will be stored separately to anonymous data, to make sure that data will not be traceable back to your child or family. 

During the project and when the project is finished, we hope to publish some reports and give presentations at conferences. When we do this, all names or other personal details about anyone from the project will be made anonymous. Anonymous data will be kept on university and national data repositories after the project ends and may be used in future ethically approved research.

We have a project website, where you will be able to find out more about our publications: https://migrant-education.net/outputs.

The results of this study may be summarised in published articles, reports and presentations. You and your child will not be identifiable from any published results. Quotes or key findings will always be made anonymous in any formal outputs unless we have your child’s prior and explicit written permission to attribute them to them by name. A summary of the findings from the study will be made available on our website.

The study proposal has been reviewed by Moray House School of Education and Sport Ethics Committee and the City of Edinburgh Council.

If you do not wish for your child to participate, your decision will be respected whichever way you may choose to communicate it, e.g. by completing the OPT OUT consent form to say you do not agree or by emailing the research team (migrant-education@ed.ac.uk). For more information: Please speak to your child’s link teacher and they will be able to give you more information or they contact the team, on your behalf, if you have any questions they cannot answer.

If you would like to discuss this study with someone independent of the study please contact Dr Fiona O’Hanlon fiona.ohanlon@ed.ac.uk. 

If you wish to make a complaint about the study, please contact: Dr. Fiona O’Hanlon fiona.ohanlon@ed.ac.uk.

Link Teacher (for more information and to contact the research team): Ben Stewart

TEAMS Principal Investigator: natasa.pantic@ed.ac.uk

Outreach Coordinator: migrant-education@ed.ac.uk