Participants and Recruitment
All schools in the ALICE study were secondary schools. Two were coeducational and two were single sex (one boys’ and one girls’). The single sex schools were both academically selective, and the girls’ school was fee paying. Sixty-five (22%) young people consented to be contacted for a qualitative interview. The parents/carers of all potential participants were sent an email containing an information sheet and a parent consent form. In total 17 parents expressed interest in the interview and 14 (82%) consented for their child to take part. In total, pupils from four schools took part in the interviews, with 57% of the young people attending the first school, and the remaining students attending the four others.
Tables 1 provides a summary of participant sociodemographic characteristics. The mean age for participants was 12 years (range 11 – 13 years) with nine boys (64%) taking part and five girls (36%). Forty-three percent of the interviewees were from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups, and the remainder were White/British.