Kids' Life and Times

Welcome to the adults’ section of the Kids’ Life and Times survey website

What is the Kids’ Life and Times survey?

The Kids’ Life and Times survey was established in 2008 and is an annual survey of all P7 children in Northern Ireland, covering what they think about school and other things that are important to children today. The purpose of the survey is to give children a voice in issues that affect them and to give relevant organisations feedback on the views of children. The survey is anonymous so no individual child can be identified.

The surveys take place every year and the 2008 and 2009 surveys were sponsored by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. ARK also acknowledges the additional financial support provided by the Psychology Research Institute, University of Ulster for the 2009 survey.

Each year, the children taking part in KLT are asked to suggest topics for inclusion in the following year's survey and some of their suggestions are incorporated into the questionnaire. The questions asked in the surveys cover issues that are important to children and have included:

  • Bullying at school;
  • The transfer test;
  • Use of technology;
  • Attitudes to after school care;
  • Children’s feelings about themselves and their lives.

Each child is asked for his/her consent at the start of the questionnaire and they do not have to do the survey if they do not want to.

How is the information used?

The results of the surveys are used in a number of ways, including being published on the web, in reports, disseminated to and used by children's organisations, used for educational training purposes and published in academic journals. The tables of results from the surveys as well as the datasets in SPSS format are available on the Kids' Life and Times website. We ensure that anonymity is guaranteed and that information is not used in a way that would identify a school, a child or a family.

To access the KLT Research Update 'The Net Generation' please click here.

To access the KLT Research Update 'New bottle: old wine! School bullying among primary school pupils and the emergence of cyberbullying' please click here.

To access the results comics 'What kids think' or to see a sample of the animated questionnaire please click on the links below.

link to sample survey
Example of Survey

link to final results
Results Comics

characters by kind permission of  Link to Bangonthedoor website

Disclaimer:© ARK 2008 Last Updated on Wednesday, 14-Mar-2012 15:40