Disappointing and surprising that insufficient responses from UK, any idea why?
We tried many different approaches once UK schools had been selected and invited to participate, including phone calls and reminders, news items in professional journals, discussions with departments for education, local authorities etc. Among the answers given by schools were 'no time', and 'this is not a priority for us'. Other reasons can only be guessed at, but must include the particularly high level of school autonomy in England; the reasons for low participation in Germany and Netherlands for example were not the same so there is no common pattern.
Our approach was consistent across countries (participation was around 70% in Italy and Poland without any pressure to participate) and if we had included the low quality UK data it would have undermined the credibility of the results as a whole, and devalued the interest and engagement shown in other countries.
