After four weeks of our research project, and two since my last reflection blog, it’s time to check in again. The past fortnight has brought its fair share of challenges, but steady progress has been made.

Our team learned the importance of effective communication when one of our two partner schools withdrew from the project. Limited awareness and short-notice planning resulted in a very low turnout for our extracurricular activity, making future collaboration unfeasible.

This was a setback for the group, but we have made the most of the experience. We have scheduled an interview with the school’s office manager and will include the lessons we’ve learned in the final chapter of our report.

On the other hand, our experiences with the other partner school have been incredibly encouraging. It has been wonderful to see the enthusiasm and engagement from the children we are working with, and how quickly they have picked up the basics of debating. In the past couple of weeks, we have debated whether football should be banned in schools, and their responses have been insightful.

Beginning to write up our final report has also been a learning experience. The group research dynamic is so different from term-time essay writing and has provided a valuable opportunity to engage in a new style of work. Producing the literature review and methodology sections has been rewarding, equipping me with skills I can apply to my usual academic work in the future.

I am looking forward to wrapping up our extracurricular interventions next week and finalising our group research report. We are all excited to produce what we hope will be a valuable paper on the feasibility of a longer-term intervention to assess the impact of extracurricular provision.