Life Readiness Questionnaire (LRQ)

Helping children develop the understanding, confidence and resilience they need not only to learn, but to succeed in life.

Listening to children and young people to understand their strengths, their support needs and their readiness to engage, learn, build relationships, cope with challenges and develop a positive future.

Understanding children before difficulties become established

Schools work incredibly hard to support children and young people. They invest significant time, care and resources in pastoral support, safeguarding, special educational needs provision and mental health and wellbeing.

Yet one fundamental challenge remains.

The challenge is not that children’s needs emerge over time; rather, schools’ understanding of those needs develops over time.

Until those needs are understood and responded to, unmet needs may increasingly lead to difficulties with attendance, behaviour, wellbeing, relationships and readiness to learn.

The earlier schools understand pupils’ strengths and support needs, the greater the opportunity to provide timely and effective support before difficulties become more established.

That is the purpose of the Life Readiness Questionnaire.

What is life readiness?

For many years, schools have rightly focused on academic readiness, helping children develop the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in education.

More recently, emotional resilience has become an important part of the conversation, recognising the need to help children cope with stress, challenge, disruption and adversity.

Life readiness brings together a wider range of strengths and capacities. It includes the ability to understand yourself, connect with other people, manage emotions, cope with everyday challenges, seek support, believe in yourself and develop a sense of purpose and direction.

Life readiness is about understanding the strengths, capacities and protective factors that enable children to understand themselves, build positive relationships, cope with everyday challenges and develop a positive future.

The Life Readiness Questionnaire expands on our Emotional Resilience Questionnaire, which focused particularly on how children cope with and recover from adversity. The LRQ incorporates emotional resilience within a wider framework that also explores emotional literacy, relationships, belonging, confidence, help-seeking, hope and purpose.

A positive understanding of social, emotional and mental health

Mental health is sometimes understood mainly in terms of mental illness or mental health difficulties. However, positive mental health is also reflected in a person’s ability to recognise their abilities, cope with the ordinary stresses of life, build relationships, participate productively and contribute to their community.

The LRQ does not seek to measure social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) directly. Rather, it helps schools understand the factors that underpin positive social, emotional and mental health, enabling them to identify where support may strengthen pupils’ readiness to learn and overall wellbeing.

The LRQ therefore does not focus primarily on symptoms, diagnoses or what is wrong. It explores the strengths and capacities that help children cope, connect, participate and succeed.

A whole-school approach with class-level insight

The LRQ is a whole-school approach, with versions for both primary and secondary schools.

Each school’s LRQ is configured specifically for that school, reflecting its own year groups, classes and tutor-group structure. This means that every participating class receives its own report.

Each class report sets out:

• the class’s strongest areas;
• the factors where pupils indicate they would benefit from greater support;
• the class’s highest support priorities;
• how the class compares with the wider year group or school; and
• the areas that tutors may wish to address through a Class Support Plan.

The insight comes directly from the pupils in that class. Support can therefore be planned in response to the needs expressed by the class itself, rather than relying only on assumptions, general programmes or whole-school averages.

Why class-level assessment matters

Individual assessment can provide highly targeted insight, but it is expensive to carry out across large numbers of pupils. Individual support can also be intensive and costly to deliver.

Whole-school surveys are comparatively inexpensive and can provide useful strategic information. However, whole-school results may not show where support should be targeted. Different classes within the same year group can have very different strengths, experiences and support needs.

Class-level assessment offers a practical middle ground.

The LRQ allows schools to assess all pupils while still providing sufficiently detailed insight to target support effectively. A tutor can focus on the particular priorities identified by their own class, rather than delivering the same intervention to every pupil regardless of need.

From class report to Class Support Plan

The LRQ is not simply a questionnaire or reporting exercise. Its purpose is to help schools move from understanding needs to providing support and evaluating impact.

Each class report can be used to create a Class Support Plan. The plan helps the tutor or pastoral team identify the most important priorities for that class and agree practical actions in response.

A Class Support Plan may include:

• the class’s key strengths;
• the main areas where greater support is needed;
• the actions the tutor or school will take;
• how support will be delivered through tutor time, pastoral work or the curriculum;
• when progress will be reviewed; and
• what has changed following the support provided.

This creates a clear and practical cycle:

Insight comes from listening to pupils and understanding the strengths and support needs within each class.

Action is provided through a targeted Class Support Plan based on the findings for that class.

Impact is evaluated by reviewing pupils later and assessing whether support has strengthened the factors identified as priorities.

The four dimensions of life readiness

The questionnaire is structured around four key dimensions, each made up of clear, child-friendly factors.

Together, they create a holistic picture of how prepared children are to navigate the emotional, social and practical demands of school and everyday life.

1. Understanding Yourself

This dimension focuses on how well children understand, value and express themselves.

Self-Regard and Confidence
Children reflect on whether they feel their feelings matter, feel proud of who they are and believe they deserve respect.

Self-Awareness
This explores whether children can recognise their feelings, understand what may trigger them and notice how emotions affect their thoughts and bodies.

Emotional Expression
Children consider whether they can put feelings into words, speak up when something is not right and communicate both positive and difficult emotions appropriately.

Without self-understanding, children may struggle to recognise difficulties, express their needs or seek support.

2. Connecting with People

Life is lived through relationships. This dimension explores how children connect with and relate to the people around them.

Empathy
Children reflect on whether they notice how others may be feeling, care about the effect of their actions and try to understand other people’s perspectives.

Positive and Respectful Relationships
This focuses on kindness, fairness, cooperation, listening and the ability to manage disagreement respectfully.

Sense of Belonging
Children consider whether they feel accepted, included, cared for and able to be themselves within their class and school.

Positive relationships and a sense of belonging are important protective factors. They reduce isolation and make it easier for children to seek help when they need it.

3. Handling Life’s Challenges

This dimension brings together emotional management, coping and resilience.

Stability
Children consider whether they can calm themselves, manage strong emotions and remain steady when things go wrong.

Flexibility and Problem-Solving
This explores how children respond when plans change, whether they can consider different solutions, persevere and use helpful coping strategies.

Seeking and Accepting Help
Children reflect on whether they feel able to ask for help, trust adults, accept support and believe that the people around them care.

This dimension includes the everyday coping skills children use long before a crisis or serious difficulty is reached.

4. Purpose, Positivity and Forward Direction

Life readiness is not only about coping with the present. It is also about believing that the future has value and that personal actions can make a difference.

Positivity and Hope
Children consider whether they feel hopeful, notice positive experiences and believe that difficult situations can improve.

Self-Efficacy and Confidence
This explores children’s belief in their ability to learn, try, persist and recover when something does not go well.

Sense of Purpose and Responsibility
Children reflect on whether what they do feels meaningful, whether they make choices thoughtfully, take responsibility and have ideas about their future.

Purpose, confidence and hope can influence motivation, engagement and willingness to persevere.

Why Year 7 is a particularly important opportunity

New Year 7 pupils are often most in need of support at precisely the point when their new school knows the least about them.

The transition to secondary school brings a new environment, new relationships, new expectations and greater independence. Pupils may be dealing with uncertainty, disrupted friendships, increased academic demands and changes in how support is provided.

At the same time, secondary staff are supporting an entirely new cohort whose strengths, needs and experiences they are still learning to understand.

The dedicated Year 7 Transition LRQ combines the wider life readiness framework with additional questions exploring pupils’ transition experiences, including:

• continuity and familiarity;
• the experience of changing from primary to secondary school; and
• whether pupils knew what to expect.

Every tutor group receives its own report, enabling tutors to understand how their class is experiencing the transition and where support may be most valuable.

Year 7 also provides a valuable opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the wider LRQ approach. Schools can establish an early baseline, implement Class Support Plans and repeat the questionnaire later in the school year to assess whether the support provided has made a difference.

Complementing existing pastoral and SEND provision

The LRQ is intended to complement, rather than replace, existing pastoral, safeguarding and special educational needs and disabilities provision.

Specialist assessment and individual support remain essential for children with established additional and complex needs, including those receiving SEND support or an Education, Health and Care Plan.

However, many children may have support needs that have not yet been fully understood. Those needs may affect their confidence, relationships, belonging, coping, behaviour, attendance or engagement without necessarily meeting the threshold for specialist provision.

The LRQ helps schools understand these needs earlier and at a practical class level. It enables support to be provided before unmet needs lead to more entrenched difficulties requiring increasingly intensive intervention.

Why life readiness matters

Academic success does not exist in isolation.

Children who struggle to understand themselves, trust adults, build relationships, cope with challenges or believe in their future may find it harder to engage with learning and benefit from the opportunities available to them.

The Life Readiness Questionnaire helps schools to:

• listen directly to children and young people;
• understand the strengths and support needs within every class;
• identify needs before their consequences become established difficulties;
• recognise patterns across classes, year groups and cohorts;
• target support where it is most likely to make a difference;
• create practical Class Support Plans;
• strengthen the factors that underpin positive social, emotional and mental health; and
• review progress and evaluate the impact of support over time.

Life readiness is not about fixing children.
It is about understanding and supporting them.

Find out more

Contact us to learn how the Life Readiness Questionnaire and Class Support Plan approach can help your school or trust understand pupils’ strengths, identify support priorities and provide targeted, cost-effective support.

Telephone: 01189 781078
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Free demonstrations and example reports are available on request.

Let every pupil’s voice be heard and acted upon.