An Evaluation of the Circle of Friends Intervention Utilisied with Year 5 Pupils in the Uk

AN EVALUATION OF ‘CIRCLE OF FRIENDS’ INTERVENTION UTILISED WITH YEAR 5 PUPILS

A dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
MSc in Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Humanities.

2006

Philip Stock

The University of Manchester
ABSTRACT

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Circle of Friends intervention on year five (9-10 years old) pupils. The Circle of Friends approach is a recent development that aims to promote children 's social inclusion and acceptance that centrally involves the classroom peer group. Pupils from the target population volunteer to be part of the Circle of Friends, a group of eight is then selected and meet once a week (for five weeks) to discuss difficulties, problem solve and take part in a range of activities. Three experimental groups and one control group were selected from four schools in the central Manchester area. Four girls and four boys were selected from each year 5 class to form a Circle of Friends group (plus one control group). Goodman’s (2001) Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was utilised to collect pre and post intervention data for both the control and experimental groups (both teacher & pupil completed) to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach. A sociogram was also administered to help assess the effectiveness of the intervention. It was hypothesised that for the pupils participating in the Circle of Friends (experimental groups) their mean difference between pre and post ‘total difficulties’ score (SDQ) would significantly decrease and their ‘prosocial’ score (SDQ) would significantly increase when compared to the control group. This differed from the majority of research in the area as each group had two focus children (usually the intervention was based on one focus child) and the research aimed to assess the effectiveness of the approach for all pupils involved and not just the focus children. The results from the

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