For schools in England and Wales, your council will be your first point of contact for any enquiries about this website (their contact details are on the further assistance page), but you can also contact the Audit Commission by emailing schoolsurvey-help@audit-commission.gov.uk.
For Northern Ireland schools please see the Northern Ireland help file.
The survey can be visited any number of times while the website is open (3 June – 15 July 2009) until you sign it off. It is saved as work in progress each time. You can also print a copy to share with colleagues.
Please choose from one of the following areas of guidance (or scroll down to read each in turn):
Your LA and school numbers are the ones used by the DCSF/WAG in their databases of educational establishments as a reference for your school. You've probably used them on annual census forms and other returns.
For Northern Ireland allocated school numbers will be sent out on the first day of the survey.
If you are unsure what numbers to enter in order to log-in, you can either ask your council, or email the Audit Commission. There is also a way of checking online - please follow the instructions below:
The questions in the survey are grouped in the following way:
The core survey - Available to all schools and arranged in the five Every Child Matters outcomes plus a Service Management section.
Questions proposed by your council (or Dept of Education for Northern Ireland) - If they have asked us to include any.
Please answer the questions using the scale at the top of each page of the survey.
You can also enter comments both in the boxes after each section and in the further comments section at the end of the survey.
The survey can be printed from the website in order to involve colleagues, for example administrative staff, governors, your special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) and so on in deciding your school's response.
Your response to the survey questions should be based upon your judgement of support you receive from your council and the services provided locally for children and young people over the last twelve months. You must restrict your comments to the council/local services as a body. You must not include any comments from which a living individual can be identified.
We encourage headteachers to consult other members of staff and governors when responding. Whenever 'the/your school' is mentioned in a question, this means the headteacher plus the governing body.
When your school has completed the survey, the headteacher should click on Click here to sign off and submit your survey as complete from the main survey menu page.
Please note:
This involves telling us how you would like your schools' response to be used. The default is to remain completely anonymous to your council. This means that your response will be added to the anonymised aggregated analysis reports; we will also provide your council with a verbatim copy of your comments - without naming your school. However, on top of this you can choose to release your named completed survey to your council. More information on the release of your response to your Council and other stakeholders can be found in the terms of use.
Analysis of the responses to this year's school survey will be made available on this website in the autumn term 2009.
We ask for feedback from schools at the end of the survey and have received many useful comments and suggestions. Our evaluation reports on the 2002-2007 surveys are available on this website; these indicate how we've incorporated feedback from schools into our project planning.
If you have any further comments on either the survey itself or the website please email the school survey helpline.
