

1. ABOUT THE DATASET
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Title:	Promoting schools’ positive orientations to diversity to improve educational outcomes for multilingual learners

Creator(s): Naomi Flynn https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3710-9910  

Organisation(s): University of Reading

Rights-holder(s):University of Reading

Publication Year:2025

Description: The data are interviews from a collaborative project between Flynn (University of Reading) and Hampshire's Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service (EMTAS). The project was a British Academy Innovation Fellowship knowledge exchange project in which Flynn and EMTAS worked together to find out a) what schools felt they needed in terms of support for their multilingual learners who are learning English to access the curriculum, and b) what sort of online tool might support them in school-led improvements to both pedagogy for multilingual learners and positive mindset towards these learners. The project resulted in an online toolkit called The Talk-Rich Teaching Toolkit which supported schools in resourcing the oracy education (spoken language) of both their multilingual learners and their children from Gypsy Roma and Traveller backgrounds. The data sets included are fact-finding interviews with 15 schools' senior leadership teams undertaken in summer 2024;  10 interviews with 9 schools who took part in piloting the online toolkit in spring 2025; 4 interviews with members of the EMTAS team. Interview schedules are included for all participants. The 9 schools who piloted the Toolkit also took part in observations by Flynn and some EMTAS members and these were recorded in field-notes and classroom observation pro-forma. Blank versions of these are included as research instruments. The data on these documents is considered too challenging to fully anonymise and so these data are not included in this repository.  A codebook of early data analysis is included using the elements of positive orientations to diversity established in this publication Viesca, K. M., Alisaari, J., Flynn, N., Hammer, S., Lemmrich, S., Routarinne, S., & Teemant, A.(2024). Orientations for co-constructing a positive climate for diversity in teaching and learning. In Teacher Education in (Post-) Pandemic Times: International Perspectives on Intercultural Learning, Diversity and Equity. Peter Lang. While all interview data are anonymised, references to the organisation Hampshire EMTAS remains in some of the data documentation because they are named collaborative partners in the project grant. 



Changelog: NA

Cite as: Flynn (2025) Outputs from interviews in project Promoting schools’ positive orientations to diversity to improve educational outcomes for multilingual learners.  University of Reading. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.17864/1947.001471

Related publication: Flynn, N., Lippmann, I. N., Coles, S., Barker, C., Dinneen, A., Smith, H., Grant, K., Lancaster, M., Chinnery, L. and Maguire, T., (2025) Improving schools’ oracy education for multilingual and Gypsy Roma Traveller pupils: the Talk-Rich Teaching Toolkit. Report. University of Reading doi: 10.48683/1926.00125570

Contact: n.flynn@reading.ac.uk

Acknowledgements: Ingrid Nanne Lippman (Research Assistant, University of Reading); Dr Sarah Coles (Team Leader, Hampshire EMTAS); Claire Barker, (Deputy Team Leader, Hampshire EMTAS) 


2. TERMS OF USE
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Copyright (2025) (University of Reading). This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


3. PROJECT AND FUNDING INFORMATION
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Title: Promoting schools’ positive orientations to diversity to improve educational outcomes for multilingual learners

Dates: March 21st 2024 - July 25th 2025

Funding organisation: The British Academy (Innovation Fellowship Fund)

Grant no.:IF2324\240016



4. CONTENTS
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Interviews phase 1 (15 schools, summer 2024)

SchoolA_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolB_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolC_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolD_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolE_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolF_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolG_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolH_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolI_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolJ_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolK_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolL_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolM_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolN_phase_1_summer24.docx
SchoolO_phase_1_summer24.docx

Interviews phase 3 (10 schools, spring 2025; 4 interviews with EMTAS team, summer 2025)

SchoolA_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolB_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolC_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolD_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolE_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolF1_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolF2_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolI_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolJ_phase_3_spring25.docx
SchoolM_phase_3_spring25.docx
EMTAS1_final_summer25.docx
EMTAS2_final_summer25.docx
EMTAS3_final_summer25.docx
EMTAS4_final_summer25.docx

Interview schedules

Interview_schedule_phase1_summer24.docx
Interview_schedule_phase3_spring25.docx
Interview_schedule_EMTAS_summer25.docx


Data collection instruments and Codebook (generated using NVivo20)

School_fieldnotes_spring25.docx
School_observation_spring25.docx
Codebook_Positive_Orientations.docx



5. METHODS
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Interviews were conducted online via Microsoft Teams at times that were convenient for the leadership teams. Schools were offered in-person or online and all chose online. Interviews were recorded on Microsoft Teams and lasted for an average of 30 minutes each. Teams recordings were uploaded to a professional, secure transcription platform for professional transcribing. Transcripts were reviewed first by the PGR Research Assistant and then by the lead researcher. Following double review for accuracy the transcripts were pseudonymised. EMTAS team members' names are pseudonymised throughout because, although two of them had explicit roles as project partners, they were also involved as participants in interviews. 
Transcripts of all interviews undertaken are included in the data set. 

Post-meeting fieldnotes were recorded by the lead researcher following any meeting event. e.g. Meetings between the researcher and the EMTAS team, meetings with schools online. 
In person visits to schools in the spring of 2025 were recorded during and following meetings on both the field-notes pro-forma and the classroom observation proforma.
These research instruments are included in the deposition but not the data collected with them. This decision was taken because it was considered too difficult to fully anonymise any data. The commentary in either would have become meaningless. 

25.3.24 – 26.4.24 (included 2-week Easter break for schools and EMTAS team)
• Project set-up, schedule of team meetings and team roles established, identification and recruitment of 15
school group interview participants, schools’ interview question design.

29.4.24 – 23.7.24: Phase 1  
• Conducting interviews with school leadership teams; including their co-ordinators for multilingual pupils’
teaching and learning where these existed. 
• Regular meetings with Flynn  and EMTAS special advisory teachers for
research-to-practice knowledge exchange that informed design of new professional learning online offer
• Generation of fieldnotes by Flynn after meetings, and post-meeting discussion with EMTAS leads to consolidate agreed changes to online offer content 
Identification of pilot schools by inviting participation from the 15 schools interviewed

• 24.7.24 – 30.8.24: Schools’ summer break: 
Generation of transcripts from 15 school interviews 
Thematic analysis, using computer-aided qualitative data analysis software NVivo, of  school interviews and
	project team conversation fieldnotes to inform design of website and toolkit content. 
• Creating schedule of activity for design and publication of new professional learning website content 
• Establishing roles, responsibilities, and timescales for phases 2 & 3 

2.9.24 – 1.11.24: Phase 2 
• Development of new 'Talk-Rich Teaching Toolkit' hosted on EMTAS’ Moodle
• Decisions regarding delivery options e.g. how new materials are used in face-to-face, hybrid and school-led
versions.
Draft Talk-Rich Teaching Toolkit published
• Drew up schedule for pilot activity and designed observation pro-forma.
• Meetings online with 9 schools to discuss pilot involvement; agreed that all materials would be used by schools online and independently, with Flynn and other EMTAS members undertaking collaborative, informal classroom observations to judge how the Toolkit was being used by schools and teachers. 

4.11.24 - 20.12.24: Phase 3 
• Pilot activity starts by 11.11.24 
• Continued Thematic Analysis of data from phase 1 
• Continued meetings of Flynn with EMTAS
Meetings between Flynn and Schools to support use of the Toolkit

6.1.25 – 21.3.25 Phase 3 continued
• Pilot continues in 9 schools 
•	End of project evaluation interviews with pilot schools

21.3.25 0 25.7.25 Phase 4 
• End of project interviews and evaluation between Flynn and all EMTAS team involved 
• Continued building of online Toolkit content and addition of films and images
Thematic Analysis of the final interviews to compare with initial interviews

Interview coding used domain names related to Positive Orientations to Diversity as described in Viesca, K. M., Alisaari, J., Flynn, N., Hammer, S., Lemmrich, S., Routarinne, S., & Teemant, A.(2024). Orientations for co-constructing a positive climate for diversity in teaching and learning. In Teacher Education in (Post-) Pandemic Times: International Perspectives on Intercultural Learning, Diversity and Equity. Peter Lang.

