How to conduct an effective survey

Use our step-by-step guide and grab-and-go statement banks to save time and get the insights you need from parents, pupils and staff.

Last reviewed on 31 January 2025
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 38620
Contents
  1. 1. Set a goal for your survey
  2. 2. Decide who to ask and when
  3. 3. Choose your format
  4. 4. Create your survey using our grab-and-go statement banks
  5. 5. Trial and review your survey
  6. 6. Launch day – make it a big deal!
  7. 7. Analyse your results and act on them
  8. Other ways to get feedback

1. Set a goal for your survey

Surveys can help you:

  • Identify your strengths and weaknesses
  • Decide your future school improvement priorities
  • Demonstrate the effectiveness of your actions over the past year
  • Show your local authority/trust, governors and Ofsted the impact of past school improvement objectives

Consider why you're doing the survey, and what you hope the results will help you do. Set a clear goal for the survey based on this.

Having a clear goal means you can make sure that every question in your survey is relevant and useful. For example, a goal might be:

  • To determine why you're struggling to retain teachers
  • To find out how safe your pupils feel in school
  • To understand your pupils’ awareness of and access to support services in school

2. Decide who to ask and when

For