FAQs
How School Surveys works
Choose your questions
We provide access to our unique question bank – you create a survey tailored to your needs, using our easy survey builder
Ask your staff anonymously
Staff receive a link at the time you’ve chosen and complete the survey in less than five minutes
Gain unique insights
We create a report showing exactly what’s going on, and how it compares to other schools
How can we help?
Topics
School Surveys powered by Teacher Tapp enables School and Trust leaders to create staff, parent, pupil and central teams surveys, share them easily and use the reports to take action.
We want to support School and Trust leaders to make a difference in education in an uncomplicated way. We present complex data received from staff, parent, pupil and central teams surveys in a usable way.
School Surveys differs from other survey providers because we provide representative, benchmarked data we receive from over 10,000 staff using Teacher Tapp, our teacher app. This gives leaders a reference point when looking at their data, as they can see how the results from their school compare to other similar schools by phase and FSM quartile.
We also have years of experience in designing and perfecting our questions. It can be hard to find or create really good questions; our question bank is full of education-specific questions, covering all aspects of school life.
In addition to this, we have designed the platform to be quick and easy to use, to save you time. It takes approximately three minutes to create a survey, schedule and share it.
After this, you will receive your results in an automatically generated report when the survey closes, as well as access to the data online in real time as it comes in.
We also have a dedicated support team to help you at any stage along the way, from planning your surveys to interpreting your results.
Yes! School Surveys has great flexibility to enable Trusts to survey all their schools and/or enable schools to do their own surveying. We work with a growing number of trusts and local authorities and they are all using it in slightly different ways!
Our reports allow you to look at all data aggregated, but also to filter it in a variety of ways including looking at each school’s results individually.
If you would like more information about how School Surveys can support your trust, please get in touch with us at hello@schoolsurveys.com.
We believe that good surveying is the starting point for change and will lead to improvements in your school/s.
When people see that their feedback is listened to and acted on, they engage more willingly in the conversation. Creating and running great surveys is step 1. Sharing the results, celebrating the successes and being honest about the challenges is step 2. Being clear about the actions you will take and then making changes is step 3. Then looping back round and re-surveying completes the feedback loop that leads to a healthy culture where everyone’s voice is valued and feedback leads to action.
School Surveys is set up to make this feedback loop simple and quick for you to engage in so your results lead to improvements.
We have the official Ofsted surveys for staff, parents and pupils ready to use on School Surveys, and also lots of other templates that will help you prepare for, and speak to Ofsted, when they come.
Using School Surveys is one way to demonstrate that staff, parent and pupil voice is important to you and informs your decision-making and school improvement actions.
The responses from your staff surveys will be benchmarked against schools which are in the same phase and FSM quartile as you. This data comes from the responses of over 10,000 teachers who answer questions daily on Teacher Tapp. This gives you a reference point when thinking about how to respond to the feedback you’ve received.
Pupil and parent surveys are benchmarked against other schools who are using School Surveys.
When you have asked a question more than once, you will also be able to see how your results compare to the last time. you asked the question. This comparison can help you evidence the impact of changes you make and celebrate or respond with further action.
The cost of the School Surveys package depends on whether you sign up to our unlimited or our staff surveys package, and on the phase of your school. Prices range from £327 per year to £1,995 per year. Please click here to download our price list.
Trust prices are based on the number and size of schools in the Trust and the plan you would like to choose, so please get in touch on hello@schoolsurveys.com for a quote.
To discuss further, you can also book a meeting for a time that suits you by clicking here.
Yes! Just book in here for a call at a time that suits you. In a demo we can show you how you create, schedule and share surveys, how you receive your results and interpret the findings.
If you want to explore more or trial it before buying, this is possible too, just get in touch on hello@schoolsurveys.com or book a call here.
With well over 300 staff questions and 200+ pupil and parent survey questions, our topics cover most aspects of school life. You can also write and include your own custom questions specific to your school or trust.
For staff surveys, we offer 23 different topics. These cover a range of areas such as:
- Behaviour
- Curriculum
- SEND
- Pastoral
- Wellbeing
For parent and pupil surveys, our topics include:
- Learning
- Parenting
- Communication
- Personal development
And more.
Here are some examples of the questions we provide:
- What should leaders do to improve wellbeing in school? (Staff)
- Which of the following words would you use to describe your school’s behaviour policy? (Staff)
- Which of these words describes how you felt about your last lesson? (Students)
- How doable are homework tasks for your child? (Parents)
Please get in touch with us at hello@schoolsurveys.com to discuss your school or trust/organisation’s needs and explore the full catalogue of topics we have available.
Our bank of questions are carefully written to allow you to get the most out of School Surveys. Across the 23 different topics available in staff surveys, we have questions which fall into various categories:
– Purely subjective: how do they feel or what are their opinions about the chosen topic. These could look like open ended questions or ask opinions about whether a policy is clear, vague, reasonable, and so on.
– More objective about staff behaviour: these questions lean more towards frequency of tasks or events in school. These usually include numerical answers. When asking how many days in the week staff have stayed after school for example, they give a numerical answer up to 5.
– Questions about what is going on around them: these questions give leaders a valuable insight into aspects of the school which they may not always see first hand. An example question is whether staff members are doing their allocated duties which can have responses such as always, sometimes and so on.
– What are the effects they can see: for example, when asking which behaviours your staff have seen around the school in the last week, have they seen students fighting, using mobile phones, dropping litter and so on.
– What can leadership do differently: these questions are usually open ended, and ask respondents for their opinions on the chosen topic. Respondents type what they would like to share with leadership and you will see their responses as they have been typed.
When you sign up for School Surveys, you can survey staff and if you choose the unlimited subscription, you can also survey parents and pupils.
School Surveys is primarily used to survey staff, students and parents. In addition, we now offer questions aimed at governors and central teams. You can also write your own questions. We also welcome suggestions and ideas for developing more questions and templates. Please get in touch via hello@schoolsurveys.com.
Most staff survey questions are suitable for support staff and if applicable, we will split the data from a survey into support staff answers and teachers’ answers. There are a small proportion of survey questions which are aimed at teachers but there is the option to answer ‘not applicable’.
You can also write your own questions.
Yes! We have years of experience at curating the best questions to ask so we recommend you take a look at our question banks first to see if what you want to ask already exists. This would also mean, for our closed response questions, you would be able to see your benchmarks.
If there is something specific to your organisation which isn’t included, you can add:
- Open response question: these are questions where your participants can type their answers to the question.
- Multiple choice question: these are questions where your participants can select multiple answers from a pre-defined list.
- Single response question: these are questions where your participants can choose just one response from a pre-defined list.
Reports with your results are generated automatically when your survey closes, with an email notification and report sent to you.
Results are also viewable in real-time in the online reporting area as they come in.
We have designed School Surveys to offer a high degree of flexibility. You set up the surveys to run at a convenient time and you can focus on the topics which are most important to you.
We think schools get the most out of school surveys when they plan their surveys in advance to cover important issues for them, and then track the impact of the changes they are making. The surveys allow schools to communicate effectively and respond to any issues raised in the surveys.
For more information about how other schools are using School Surveys, you can read case studies about MEA Central and Durham Johnston Comprehensive School.
The School Surveys portal is designed to be easy to use. On average, it takes school leaders three minutes to set up a survey. Please feel free to get in touch with us at hello@schoolsurveys.com if you are experiencing any issues. We are happy to help!
Teacher Tapp and School Surveys are two separate things.
School Surveys are shared through weblinks or QR codes which you can access through your browser on computers and on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.
There is no need for School Surveys users to download the Teacher Tapp app. Teacher Tapp participants’ individual responses are not shared with schools using School Surveys
The benchmarks we use for staff surveys are a comparison of your results to the answers of over 10,000 teachers who we survey nationally through Teacher Tapp each day. Because so many teachers have responded, we are able to match your school’s results to schools in the same phase and FSM quartile as you. If your FSM quartile has changed, your benchmark will be updated automatically for you.
For parent and pupil surveys, the benchmarks come from other schools using School Surveys.
Our data team also researches and develops improvements to how we deliver your benchmark information within School Survey reports. As a result, you may notice that some benchmarks look different when you revisit a previous survey, or look at results over time. These are generally small changes to improve the accuracy of the comparison and readability of reports.
If you have any suggestions, feature ideas or any feedback, please feel free to get in touch with us! You can simply drop us an email at hello@schoolsurveys.com.
It’s totally up to you. We usually recommend that surveys should be sent out every half term. This allows you to receive regular feedback from staff, students and parents. It also allows you to strengthen lines of communication between leaders and all other members of the school community.
When surveys are set regularly, we are also able to provide a comparison in your report by showing the answers to the same questions. This allows you to track the impact of the changes you are making.
If you are a trust leader, you can see both the trust and the individual school portals. To switch between them, simply toggle between the two tabs (“Organisation Surveys” and “Our Schools”) above the table of surveys and choose the school you want to view from the drop down list.
If you are expecting an email from us, please wait a couple of minutes and check your spam mailbox. Sometimes school and trust filters can slow down how quickly you receive our emails. If it has not arrived after five minutes, please check that you have typed your email address correctly and then try again.
If you don’t receive our emails at all, it may be that the email is being ‘held’ by your school’s security system. If this is the case, please ask your IT department to check for any emails being held from @schoolsurveys.com or @schoolsurveys.com. They will then be able to release those emails for you and unblock our email suffixes to ensure you don’t experience this issue again.
If you need further support, just drop us an email hello@schoolsurveys.com and we’ll be happy to help.
Yes. Surveys run through our platform are completely anonymous, even to us. The only way that a participant could be identified is if they choose to make themselves known through the way that they answer a question, for example in a free text box, or if you add your own question that asks for identifiable information. No questions are compulsory.
No. In order to maintain anonymity and trust, none of the questions we have written ask your participants for identifiable information and data is aggregated.
The only way that a participant could be identified is if they choose to make themselves known through the way that they answer a question, for example in a free text box, or if you add your own question that asks for identifiable information.
Sometimes leaders write their own questions, including demographic ones, that may invite participants to identify themselves. It is up to leaders to think about this and weigh the value of anonymity vs being able to track responses in this way. Questions can also be skipped.
For School Surveys, we don’t need any data from the participants. You can choose to upload staff email addresses in order for us to distribute the survey on your behalf, but you can also choose to distribute the school surveys yourself. In the questions that we provide, we don’t typically ask participants for any identifiable information in order to maintain anonymity.
We use your data to collate responses and generate your report. We don’t share the responses from your schools or trust with anyone else.
We aggregate the responses from all staff, pupils and parents across School Surveys to provide national benchmarks. These responses are not attributable to your organisation.
For an in-depth description of how we collect, use, store or share your data, please click here to view our Privacy Policy. If you have any further questions or need any further information about the contents of the Privacy Policy, please get in touch with us at hello@schoolsurveys.com.
