Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Kids' Life and Times Survey (KLT) began in 2008 and is conducted by Access Research Knowledge (ARK) which runs the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (NILT) and the Young Life and Times Survey (YLT). The KLT is a survey of Primary year 7 (P7) children in Northern Ireland which is carried out online and in school. (Note that NILT did not run in 2011, but resumed in 2012. The KLT and YLT both ran as normal in 2011.)

The aims of the KLT are to:

• provide broad-based monitoring systems to examine children's views on policy issues on a regular basis
• ensure that the information from the survey is fed back to policymakers and others engaged in the policy debates around children and their lives
• provide a high profile endorsement of 'participation' by Northern Ireland's children

Further information about KLT, including the comic-style publication with key results especially designed for children, may be found on the ARK main Kids' Life and Times Survey web pages.

The 2010 KLT survey built on the success of the 2008 and 2009 KLT surveys and used the same methodology to assess the views of Primary 7 children in Northern Ireland. However, based on the results of a post-survey consultation exercise with some school principals, the fieldwork for the 2010 survey took place in February/March. It was hoped that this would help to increase the response rate.

Main Topics:

The 2010 survey covered the following topics:

• bullying at school
• happiness with school
• health-related quality of life (Kidscreen-27)
• the transfer tests
• sport
• World Health Organisation measure of family financial circumstances