A: In primary schools, only pupils in Years 5 and 6 complete the survey. For schools with secondary aged pupils, the survey is for all year groups from Year 7 to Year 13 (inclusive). For FE colleges, students in Years 12 and 13 take part.

A: The 2023 survey will be live directly after half term, from 21st February until 21^st March 2023.

A: We recommend that the survey is accessed on a desktop computer, a laptop or a tablet device. We do not recommend using a mobile phone to access the survey, as the functionality may suffer.

A: We supply a parental opt-out letter that must be sent to all parents of under 16s at least a week before the survey is carried out. Please email oxwell@psych.ox.ac.uk if you need to this to be re-sent to you.

A: Here is some suggested wording if parents ask to know more about the survey:

Children in years xxxxx (amend as necessary) are taking part in a survey being conducted on behalf of [local authority name] through the University of Oxford. The survey provides an opportunity for pupils to voice their opinions on different health and wellbeing themes and have some influence on the future provision of health and wellbeing resources. Our school will get feedback on our pupils’ school experience and useful information for future Ofsted inspections. The survey is conducted to collect averages of children’s behaviour and no directly identifying information, such as names, emails or addresses, is taken. In addition, we take extensive precautions to ensure pupils cannot be identified. We look forward to sharing the information with parents/carers later in the year when the data has been analysed.

A: Yes. For teachers or other staff wishing to look at the survey before pupils, please follow these steps once you have received your school’s log in details:

• Enter the test ‘user ID’ and ‘password’ provided to you.
• In the ‘Year Group’ drop-down box, select the correct Year Group for your setting (i.e. Year 5 or 6 for Primary, Year 7 – 11 for Secondary, Year 12 & 13 for FE).

A: Yes, it’s very important to make sure you test the link to make sure it’s working before you embark on completing the survey with your class.

A: Students cannot be identified and are not asked personal identifying information such as their name, where they live, etc. When your students complete the survey, please do not have them working in pairs and ask them not to look at what other students are doing.

A: Yes, please let your IT Support Team know about the survey, so they can make sure your firewall is not blocking the survey and please ask your IT manager to whitelist it. They will need to know the URL is https://oxwell2023ops.fabsurveys.co.uk/  and this is the same for each page.

Some schools may have a safety mechanism where key words trigger a screenshot of the pupil’s device. There are a number of words within the survey that may trigger this. Can you please ensure it is disabled for the survey, and please inform your pupils that it has been disabled.

A: If the link is not working, please check you are using http or https and not www. If the link is still not working, it may be blocked or filtered by your school’s IT security – please ask the IT administrator to help. If they are not able to resolve the problem, please contact us at elaine.purse@fabresearch.com.

A: Internet failure – because of the anonymous nature of the survey we do not provide individual logins for children and young people, this means if the connection to the internet fails it is not possible to return to an individual’s survey response by logging back in (the survey will have to be started again from the beginning).  However, if the internet fails there is usually a message on the browser that says ‘you are not connected to the internet’ after the survey button has been clicked (this is usually the first indication that the signal has failed).  Clicking the browser back button will get the last page of the survey back.  So long as a page of the survey is still displayed in the browser and nothing is touched until an internet connection is re-established, the survey can be continued – although if the delay is for many hours, the survey connection itself will time out in which case there is nothing to be done except start the survey again.  Please let us know if you have to re-start a batch of students so we can remove the uncompleted surveys from the database.

A: The survey takes around 30 minutes to complete. You also need to allow time to start up and login. If using laptops, please ensure in advance they are all charged or plugged in and connected to WIFI throughout if using remotely. The survey works very well on iPads and tablets.

A: Yes. However, primary teachers have found it useful to go through the first section of demographic questions as a class activity. This allows the teacher to ensure that questions about ethnicity, being a looked after child and whether their family is supported by a social worker can be clarified, although each child still answers privately and anonymously. (Once the class reach the breakfast question, children are usually able to continue answering independently).

A: Yes. You will need to write up the user name and password for the pupils to see. Please ensure that all pupils start the survey using the blue login page so that they enter the correct year group. They may need to close and re-open the browser if other pupils have been doing the survey on the same computer.

A: Please remind pupils to check the caps lock is off as the password is all in lower case. The user ID and password is the same for all pupils in your school/college.

A: Yes, please call 01285 700759.

A: No, the survey needs to be completed in one session.

A: Yes, and this is preferable to them giving a false or untrue answer. If pupils are in doubt, they should be reminded that their answers cannot be traced back to them; the survey is anonymous.

A: The survey is FREE to schools and colleges (including primaries, secondaries, sixth forms, FE colleges and independents) in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Milton Keynes and Liverpool. The local authority, public health or NHS in these areas have commissioned the survey for schools and colleges.

A: We recommend that during the window when your pupils/young people complete the survey you work with staff within your school (such as Heads of Year or Pastoral Leads) or college (i.e. Student Welfare Leads / Advisors) and external staff (i.e. Educational Psychologists / Youth Counselling Team / Mental Health Support Team) to ensure there is the opportunity for young people to be able to speak to a trusted adult.
Ideally, this would be someone in the school/college or linked to it. The support made available could be something as simple as offering after-school or lunch-time drop-ins and/or extended discussion time and signposting in class. In previous years of the survey, some pupils/young people have approached the staff member present in the room, while others have gone to their Form Takers or Heads of Year. This is very dependent on the pupil/young person, their problem and the relationships they have in school/college. But it may help to let them know that staff are aware of the survey, so they can approach the right adult for them.

Before completing the survey, pupils/young people are also shown a short presentation about the questions. This includes information about sources of support.

A: We are working on creating a tailored special schools survey, which might be more appropriate for your school. We are aiming to have it ready in summer 2023. Please email oxwell@psych.ox.ac.uk if your school would like to take part in this, or would like to discuss further.