7 ways to get better data from belonging survey questions

Most schools can find a list of belonging survey questions in a few minutes. Fewer end up with results they can act on. The gap rarely comes from the questions alone. It comes from what leaders decided before choosing them, how the wording lands with a Year 3 pupil or a newly arrived EAL pupil, who sees the results, and what happens in the weeks after the survey closes.

By belonging, we mean pupils feeling accepted, respected, included and supported in school. The seven strategies below cover how to choose, word, time, segment and follow up belonging survey questions so the data feeds planning at school and trust level.

1. Decide the decision before you choose the questions

A question earns its place when someone can say what they would do differently depending on the answer. Without that test, question lists grow by accretion: each item seems reasonable, and the survey ends up long, slow to analyse and silent on what to change.

Suppose a Trust wants to know whether belonging dips after the Year 6 to 7 transition. The decision is whether to change its transition programme, this points to a small set of items on friendships and having a trusted adult, asked in the summer term of Year 6, early in Year 7 and again at the end of the autumn term. Everything else is optional.

1. Write the decision in one sentence, for example "We will decide whether to extend transition support for Year 7 tutor groups."
2. Group candidate questions under the belonging topics they measure, such as relationships with adults, peer connection, fairness and safety.
3. Cut any item you cannot link to an action or a named decision.
4. Agree who owns the results and who will report them to the senior team or trustees.

The common mistake is copying a long list from another school or Trust. It looks thorough, but it produces data nobody has asked for and nobody owns. Pupils also tire on long surveys, so the final questions get weaker answers.

To check this is working, count the share of questions linked to a named decision or action. Then ask a simpler test of the first report: did it lead to at least one concrete change?

2. Use a balanced mix of statement and scale questions

A single question such as "Do you feel you belong?" gives you a number but no explanation. Pairing it with specific, behaviour-based statements lets you see which parts of school life move with the general feeling. Pair "I feel I belong at this school" with "There is an adult in school I can talk to". If the first score is low and the second is high, the issue probably sits elsewhere, perhaps with peers or with fairness. If both are low, relationships with adults become the lead hypothesis.

The rating scale matters as much as the statements. One consistent scale, for example agree to disagree across every item, means results can be compared across topics, terms and academies. It also reduces the effort a younger pupil spends working out how to answer.

• Pick one scale and use it for every rated item.
• Include a few specific statements under each belonging topic rather than one broad item.
• Limit reversed items. A few can catch careless answering, but many confuse younger pupils and make trends harder to read.
• Add one optional free-text question, such as "What would make school feel better for you?"
• Time the survey with a real pupil before launch.

The pitfall is mixing scales, with a five-point scale in one section, yes or no in another and sliders in a third. Comparison weakens and completion drops.

Track completion rate and median time to complete. Then look at stability: if core items swing sharply between terms with no change in school life, the wording or scale may be the cause.

3. Write questions pupils of every age and language can answer

A low score only means something if the pupil understood the question. When wording is pitched at adults, results reflect comprehension as much as experience, and the gap shows up hardest for younger pupils, EAL pupils and some pupils with SEND.

Rewrite the wording

Take a secondary school that starts with "The school ethos is inclusive". Few Year 8 pupils would use the word ethos. The school replaces it with "Pupils like me are treated fairly here" and pilots it with a small group that includes EAL and SEND pupils. The pilot shows that some pupils read "like me" as referring to friends, so the school adds a short explanation of what it means.

Support the answering

Wording is half the work. Read-aloud audio and translation let pupils answer in the language they think in. Staff also need a short brief on how to help a pupil with the process without suggesting an answer.

1. Draft age-banded versions for primary, lower secondary and upper secondary.
2. Remove jargon and split double-barrelled items such as "Teachers are kind and fair".
3. Pilot with a small group and ask what each question meant to them.
4. Turn on read-aloud and translation to supports them.
5. Brief staff on helping pupils access the survey without influencing answers.

The common mistake is treating non-response from EAL or SEND pupils as disengagement. Often it is an access problem. Check response and item-skip rates by phase, EAL and SEND cohort, and keep the feedback from your pilot group to guide the next revision.

4. Ask staff and families the same belonging questions

Pupil scores alone leave leaders guessing at causes. Running parallel versions for staff and parents shows where the three groups agree and where they do not.

For example, imagine Year 9 pupils report lower belonging while parents rate communication from school highly. This pattern suggests the problem is not how much information reaches home. Leaders would look at in-school relationships and day-to-day experience instead. Without the parent data, the same pupil result might have led to a new parent newsletter.

Staff add a different angle. If staff report limited voice in decisions or high workload, that is useful context for pupil results, because staff experience and pupil experience tend to be linked in the same buildings.

1. Mirror the core belonging items in staff and parent versions, adjusting the wording for the respondent.
2. Add staff items on voice, workload and support.
3. Keep the parent survey short and mobile-friendly, since most parents will open it on a phone.
4. Report the three groups side by side rather than in separate documents.

The mistake is surveying pupils only, then explaining low scores through assumptions about what staff or families think. Those assumptions are often wrong in both directions.

Measure the response rate for each group, since a thin parent response limits what you can conclude. Then track the gap between pupil, staff and parent scores on matched items. The size of that gap, and whether it narrows, tells you more than any single average.

5. Choose anonymous or named responses deliberately

Anonymity tends to produce more candid answers, especially on questions about fairness and relationships with adults. Named responses allow leaders to follow up with individuals and to analyse by cohort without relying on a separate data match. Neither is correct by default, the right choice depends on what the survey is for.

Imagine a Trust that runs whole-school climate items anonymously, because candour matters most there. For its work on Pupil Premium and SEND cohort patterns, it uses named responses within a defined consent process, so leaders can see how experience differs by group. The two surveys have different purposes, and pupils are told which is which.

1. Decide the mode for each survey and write down the reason.
2. Tell pupils, staff and parents who will see the results and in what form.
3. Set a minimum reporting group size so small cohorts are never shown.
4. Check your privacy notices and UK GDPR basis with your DPO.
5. Restrict access by role, so a class teacher sees what they need and no more.

The most common error is promising anonymity while allowing breakdowns small enough to identify someone. A Year 11 pupil with an EHCP in a small school is easy to spot in a three-person cell, whatever the label says. If you cannot protect the promise, change the promise.

Watch response rate and the candour of free-text answers. Aim for zero queries about identifiability, and ask pupils directly how far they trusted the process.

6. Time the survey and repeat it on a fixed rhythm

One survey tells you where you are, a repeated survey tells you whether anything is changing. Trends need the same questions, asked at similar points, to the same groups. Across a Trust, the same window is what makes academies comparable.

Consider a Trust where every academy surveys in the same two-week window in the autumn, spring and summer terms, with a baseline in early Year 7. A board can then compare spring results across schools without wondering whether one ran its survey during mock exams and another during a residential week.

1. Set the survey calendar a year ahead and share it with academies.
2. Avoid exam periods, results weeks and major events.
3. Keep a stable core set of questions and rotate optional modules for specific topics.
4. Track response by cohort during the window and chase gaps early.
5. Publish results to staff within a few weeks of closing.

The usual pitfalls are changing questions or dates each time, and running one-off surveys that cannot show movement. Both make a good-looking report that cannot answer the question "is it getting better?".

Measure response rate by cohort, term-on-term movement on core items, and the time from survey close to shared results. If that last figure stretches past a half term, pupils stop expecting anything to come of it.

Belonging data is also useful for early warning. Belonging scores can signal risk of rising absence, suspensions and exclusions well before they appear in attendance or behaviour data, in some cases up to 18 months earlier. A regular rhythm is what makes that comparison possible.

7. Segment results by cohort and turn gaps into named actions

A whole-school average can look healthy while one group has a very different experience. Disaggregating by year group, Pupil Premium, SEND, EAL and combinations of these shows where the average hides a gap.

For example, imagine overall belonging looks healthy, but Year 8 pupils with SEND score lower on "Adults listen to me". The SENCO takes ownership of an action, such as a change to how tutors check in with those pupils, with a review date next term. The following survey shows whether the item moved.

1. Break results down by year group, Pupil Premium, SEND, EAL and relevant combinations.
2. Apply a minimum group size, in line with strategy 5.
3. Choose one to three priorities, not a long list.
4. Name an owner and a review date for each.
5. Share a "you said, we did" summary with pupils and staff.
6. Compare the results with attendance and behaviour data for the same cohorts.

Two mistakes are common. One is reporting whole-school averages only, which feels reassuring and hides the cohorts that need attention. The other is spreading effort across too many actions, so none gets enough attention to shift a score. Perceptions breaks results down by cohort using MIS data, which saves the manual matching that often stalls this step.

Measure the gap between your lowest and highest cohort scores, and the movement in the targeted cohort next term. Track whether actions were completed by their review dates, and read the results next to attendance and behaviour trends to see whether the same cohorts stand out.

Book the first survey window this term

Start with the first three strategies, since they decide whether the rest is worth doing. Write the decision the survey must inform, then draft a short question set that fits it. Pilot the wording with a small group, including EAL and SEND pupils, and cut anything you cannot link to an action.

Then put the survey in the calendar. Choose a fixed two-week window, avoid exam and event weeks, and name one person who will report results back to staff and pupils within a few weeks. Strategies 4 to 7 can follow once the first cycle has run and you have a baseline to compare against.

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