Evaluation of Sparklers
Project Background
Sparklers is a digital classroom resource bank of wellbeing activities for students in Years 1-8. It was developed in 2016 to promote the wellbeing of children and young people in schools across Ōtautahi/Christchurch. Piloting of the Sparklers’ resource was undertaken in over 50 Canterbury-based schools in 2016 and the programme was formally launched in 2017. The purpose of this evaluation, carried out in 2019/2020, was to understand the impact for students.
The research was funded by the Mental Health Foundation through the Pink Shirt Day campaign, therefore there was a focus on investigating the potential of Sparklers to reduce bullying in schools.
What we did
An exploratory sequential mixed method research design was selected to broadly explore and understand how Sparklers is implemented in schools and what impact this is having for students.
Two schools opted to work with the evaluation team to explore the impact. The first school implemented Sparklers consistently for eight-weeks. During this time shifts were evident in the use of prosocial strategies used to regulate student emotions and resolve differences. An eight-week period was insufficient to see significant change, however teachers reported small changes in focus group students and a whole school shift in relationships. The second school who have implemented Sparklers since the launch in 2017 took part as case study.
The findings from the qualitative case studies were used to develop an online survey. One hundred and thirty-seven teachers, school leaders and school support staff completed the online survey. Data confirmed the findings in schools and was consistently positive. Over 90 percent of the respondents consistently agreed that Sparklers has made a positive difference to students in their classroom.
Outcomes
Implementing Sparklers in classrooms has had a positive impact for students’ social and emotional learning, including raising self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship skills. Teachers believe Sparklers is appropriate for Māori students and students with diverse needs. There is an opportunity to explore how activities from a te ao Māori perspective could be implemented as part of Sparklers, particularly for kura and wharekura. Teachers and school leadership believe Sparklers has been an important part of a whole school positive approach to support students to learn social and emotional skills. Along with other support interventions high level behaviours have reduced over time, and students were more able to describe and manage emotions.
The combination of evidence indicates that Sparklers supports social and emotional learning, reduces antisocial behaviour, and increases social support and connectedness. Thus, indicating that implementing Sparklers regularly has the potential to reduce bullying in schools.
“ “It is pretty much positive psychology, so you’re not unpacking (negative) stuff. You’re actually enabling; you’re giving them the tools to be positive, you’re building skills to deal with issues when they come along – strengths-based teaching.” ”
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