The Dog's Trust

Background

Dogs Trust, the largest dog welfare charity in the UK , has a wide-reaching education programme encompassing workshops run by trained education officers, a website, plus free classroom resources for preschool, primary and secondary teachers. As well as educating pupils about responsible dog ownership, the programme also raises the profile of the charity.

Objectives

Although anecdotal feedback suggested that the Dogs Trust education programme was successful, the charity wished to gain a greater understanding of how their resources were being used in schools, and carry out an indepth and more rigorous assessment of their impact. This information would inform their delivery and distribution channels, their promotional activity and future product development.

In order to maximise the market research budget, Schoolzone advised The Dogs Trust to organise the research into three phases, beginning with a large-scale quantitative survey, with each subsequent phase exploring the findings in increasing detail. This also meant that the research findings at the review points could be used to inform each successive phase. Qualitative research provided a context for the quantitative elements, enabling a statistically valid and detailed picture to be drawn up.

Outcomes

• The Dogs Trust has a far greater understanding of how their resources are being used by teachers, and how this varies across key stages.
• The independent evaluations by Schoolzone-trained teacher evaluators have provided detailed feedback on their resources. This will enable the Dogs Trust to capitalise on their products’ strengths, and build on these in the next phase of product development.
• The research has highlighted some useful statistics about awareness and user satisfaction, which can be used to drive their marketing campaigns.
• Data was gathered on the relationship between the school visits and resources, highlighting additional synergies between the two.

Added value

The research was able to make connections between the different offerings provided by Dog’s Trust to schools. By linking these, a virtuous circle will be created which will ensure their continuing success.

"Dogs Trust was thrilled with the outcomes of the work undertaken by Schoolzone. The in-depth, tailor-made research gave us a unique insight into the ways in which teachers make use of our Education Programme and resources. The research discovered in detail what teachers liked and disliked about the Education Programme and what they found to be useful. Subsequently, we have been able to identify areas which require further development and change. The advantage of using Schoolzone was that the research was personal to us and we received valuable feedback and comments from teachers.” Hollie Sevenoaks, Youth Education Manager