Your guide to managing staff wellbeing

The Key for School Leaders
Your guide to managing staff wellbeing
Staff surveys: advice and template
This booklet features
a selection of articles
we’ve written in
response to school
leaders’ questions.
Over 3,500 up-todate
articles are
currently available
online on www.
thekeysupport.com/SL
What should be in a staff survey
questionnaire?
Conducting staff surveys
We asked Trevor Bailey, one of our associate
education experts, for advice on conducting staff
surveys. He said that although staff surveys are
not a statutory requirement, it is good practice to
carry them out.
He said that engaging staff in dialogue, valuing
their contributions, and acting on them when
appropriate are key ways of building a positive
staff ethos, which supports school improvement.
In addition, a carefully structured survey can
demonstrate trends over time. This provides
valuable evidence of planning for reporting to
governors, sponsors, local authorities and Ofsted.
Trevor suggested that schools could also get
feedback from staff through:
• Setting up working groups to discuss specific issues
or areas where developments are being considered
• Open or structured discussions with groups of
staff; such groups might be made up of a particular
department or Key Stage, or include a crosssection
of staff
• A structured schedule of one-to-one conversations
between members of the senior leadership team
and members of staff
• Exit interviews with staff who are leaving
• Informal discussions, for example in the staff room
You may decide that you wish to:
• Conduct a general survey of staff views and
attitudes, across a range of issues
• Review a new initiative that has been put in place
• Survey views about a particular aspect of the school
An annual review survey may cover behaviour,
health and safety, staff morale, resourcing, and
key aspects of the school’s improvement plan
which have been implemented during that year.
Choosing a format for the survey
Trevor suggested three possible question formats.
He advised that the formats you choose will
depend on the purpose of the survey, as well
as the number of staff being surveyed and the
resources your school can allocate to analysis.
1. ‘Yes’ or ‘no’ questions
Questions that encourage ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers
can be useful when you need a quick snapshot of
views on a straightforward matter.
2. Scale of satisfaction
Respondents are asked to select an option
from a range – such as ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’,
‘disagree’, or ‘strongly disagree’. This allows you to
see a full range of opinions across the staff team.
3. Open-ended questions
Asking some open-ended questions can be helpful if
you want to get detailed feedback. However, you will
need to build in more time to analyse the responses.
Writing a staff questionnaire
Choosing which questions to ask
Trevor explained that, when deciding what to ask
staff members, you should consider the purpose of
the survey and what it is that you want to find out.
It is important to be
transparent with staff and
share the survey results
Presenting the results of staff
surveys
Trevor said it is important to be transparent with
staff and share the survey results once they have
been gathered. A good way to present the results
is during a staff meeting, as this gives staff a
chance to discuss the outcomes of the survey and
suggest ways forward.
We also asked Gareth Balch, another of our
associate education experts, for advice on
presenting the results of staff surveys.
Gareth advised presenting the results in a positive
setting, such as an INSET day or a meeting at the
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