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OxWell School Survey 2023

The University of Oxford and Foster and Brown joint logo

The 2023 OxWell Student Survey closed just before Easter and the massive amount of data is now being analysed by University of Oxford Psychology Department researchers and Local Authority analysts. A big Thank You to the Local Authorities for signing up for this comprehensive research into the mental health and well-being of children and young people in their area. Over 44,000 responses were collected from Primary, Secondary and Sixth form/Further Education students.

Schools are able to see their own results, find insights and compare performance with similar Settings in their own area by using our LodeSeeker® data tool. For a description of how the LodeSeeker® data tool for schools works see here.

  • Preliminary findings were presented at the 'OxWell Student Survey 2023 - National Webinar' held early in July. A recording of this webinar is available here as a YouTube video.
  • For more information about the OxWell project go to the OxWell Study & Mental Health page of the University of Oxford Department of Psychology website.

GSCP Safeguarding Children (Section 175 / 157) Audit 2022/23

The Gloucestershire Children Safeguarding Partnership Audit for Early Years Settings (including Nurseries and Childminders) is now complete for this Academic Year.

Feedback on ease of completion of the Audit is overwhelmingly positive. The Audit does not ask for a record of evidence to be uploaded or described, but affirmative responses must be evidenced within the setting and be ready for examination during inspection. This streamlines the process considerably and gives each setting a comprehensive checklist with which to work.

There are 3 separate versions of the Audit, written specifically for the different requirements for schools, nurseries and childminders. Each version can be separately administered so that the Audit can be live for different Settings at different times or if only required for specific Settings.

See details of the Audit here. Contact us if you are interested in knowing more.

Online Pupil Surveys

Online Pupil Survey frogs

The OxWell Survey content is fixed by the University of Oxford Psychology researchers and the Data Controller is the University of Oxford. This means that customisation of your own survey is not possible. If you prefer more control over the content of your survey, you can commission us directly and we will work with you to produce your own Children and Young People's Online Survey (OPS) or other types of survey or audit (see examples, such as the Year 6 Transition Survey and Section 175 / 157 Safeguarding Audit). We also offer a short (5-10 minute) 'CONNECT' survey run in September as a snapshot of attitudes to school, anxiety and mental health before the full OPS the following year.

South Gloucestershire Online Pupil Survey 2023

The South Gloucestershire OPS is now complete and collected over 13,500 responses.The data is currently being analysed and a Summary Report will be published in due course.

The previous survey run in 2021 gave us over 8000 responses and a Summary Report is available on the South Gloucestershire Council Public health and wellbeing website.

Year 6 Transition Survey

We offer a pupil-focused questionnaire for Year 6 students with a focus on transition to Secondary school that gives them a voice around their anxieties and perceptions on moving to a bigger school as well as their health and well-being.

The survey is completed by students and gives Secondary Schools a clear sense of the issues that are uppermost from the pupils themselves which then support the transition process. This transition survey is available to any Local Authority that wishes to ease the transition of their Year 6 pupils into Secondary school.

If you are interested in this survey, please contact us to discuss.

Details about our Online surveys »  

OPS helping to understand self-harm

Gloucestershire OPS results were used as part of a study investigating the incidence of suicide and self-harm in adolescents in England - published in The Lancet 12th December 2017 - Incidence of suicide, hospital-presenting non-fatal self-harm, and community-occurring non-fatal self-harm in adolescents in England (the iceberg model of self-harm): a retrospective study Guelayov G, Casey D, McDonald K.C, Foster P, Pritchard K, Wells C, Clements C, Kapur N, Ness J, Waters K, Hawton K

More from the Oxford researchers - a new guide for parents coping with their children self-harming - you are not alone

Also developed by the researchers at the University of Oxford there is a guide for School staff: Young people who self harm: A guide for school staff

More publications:

Here's more interesting stuff »»»

Interesting stuff

The Oxford Wellbeing School Surveys - Publications

The University of Oxford and Foster and Brown joint logo

During the first lockdown in Spring 2020, University of Oxford Psychology researchers commissioned us to create an Online Pupil Survey (OPS) for pupils in lockdown. This measured the wellbeing (health and happiness) of children and young people and asked questions about life-style and school life. It was offered to pupils from yeargroups 4 up to 13 as part of schoolwork tasks supplied by their school.

Originally planned to cover Oxfordshire, the scope of this survey was expanded to include schools in more counties in the South West (South Gloucestershire and Wiltshire) and the South East (Berkshire and Buckinghamshire). The Survey gave us over 19,000 responses.

The research group is interested in understanding how best to support the mental health of children attending school and has funding to carry out more surveys in the future. In order to easily distinguish these surveys from our own custom-made Online Pupil Surveys (OPS), they have been branded the OxWell School Surveys.

Given the Covid situation, we ran the 2021 survey during the months of May through to the end of term (rather than the usual February to April). Despite Covid interruptions, the survey gave us over 30,000 responses from 4 counties: Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Liverpool.

There have been, and continue to be, many publications written by members of the University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry using the data collected in these surveys. These can be accessed by visiting the OxWell Study & School Mental Health page on the Department of Psychiatry website.

For more information on the background to the OxWell project go to the Department of Psychiatry School Mental Health page. The Survey conforms to strict rules governing ethics and personal data (GDPR). You can read approved information for parents here .

We work closely with schools, local authorities and mental health services to deliver the survey and then provide school reports, access to aggregated data via our LodeSeeker® data tool and further analysis both from Foster and Brown and the University of Oxford Psychology department researchers.

The project has received funding and support from the Oxford Health NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, the Oxford and Thames Valley NIHR ARC, the MRC Mental Health Data Pathfinder (Oxford) and the Westminster Foundation. Gloucestershire NHS Clinical Commissioning Group supported the extension of the 2020 survey to Gloucestershire schools.

  • If you represent a local authority in England and are interested in being involved in future surveys and of the costs involved, please contact: pathfinder@psych.ox.ac.uk.
  • For more information on the background to the OxWell project go to the Psychology Department School Mental Health page.
  • For information on OxWell School Survey 2020 content see here.
  • For a description of how the LodeSeeker® data tool for schools works see here.

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