Bryan Slater

Director of Education

Distribution

 

To the Headteacher of all Norfolk

LEA Schools

 

This document needs your action as detailed below:

 

Title

National Survey of Schools’ Views

of their LEA, 2004

Summary of contents

The Audit Commission and Ofsted third national survey of schools will be open from 24th May to 28th June 2004 and will be accessible online at address:

 

http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/schoolsurvey

 

Associated documents

The following are attached:

 

  1. A guide to logging on and completing the survey online.
  2. A paper copy of the survey.
  3. A paper copy of the additional questions proposed by Norfolk LEA.

 

See also MI Sheet 96/04 and letter from Dr. Slater.

Date

21st May 2004

Summary of action required

Please contribute your views by completing this questionnaire:  it is vital that as many schools as possible participate and that the response rate is increased from the disappointing 39% last year.

 

You may find it useful to complete the paper version attached here so that you or a colleague can input the response more quickly once online.

 

To be completed by

All schools by 24th June 2004

LEA Contact

Janine Birt

(

01603 223905

E-mail address

janine.birt@norfolk.gov.uk

Document reference

MI 111/04

 

 

 

Schools’ views of their LEA 2004:

the national school survey

 

How to complete the survey

 

The survey is being made available to most schools in England and Wales to ask for your views on the support provided by your LEA for school improvement over the past year.  It presents an opportunity for you to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of your LEA, in order to inform your authority as well as to influence the LEA inspection process.

 

The survey will be open from:      Monday 24th May until Monday 28th June 2004

It will be available online at:        www.audit-commission.gov.uk/schoolsurvey

 

1

Log-in

 

You can visit the website any number of times within the dates the survey is open (24th May – 28th June 2004) in order to add to or amend your schools’ response.

 

† From 24th May, go to the school survey project website at www.audit-commission.gov.uk/schoolsurvey.

† Click on Enter the 2004 survey on the homepage.

† This will take you to the online survey welcome page, where you should enter your LEA and DfES or NAfW school number (e.g. 123 then 4567) then click on Enter survey.

ˆ                                 The first time you visit the survey you will be presented with a few details about your school – you should check these to ensure that you have entered the website with the correct school number.  You should then enter your e-mail address and set a password.  Your password will be automatically emailed to you for your records.

ˆ      Click on Begin survey and you will be taken to the Main Survey Menu.

† To re-visit the survey before the closing date, you will only have to enter your school number and password in order to log-in.

 

2

The survey

 

The questions in the survey are grouped in the following way:

The core survey - Available to all schools and arranged in 5 subject sections (e.g. Section A: LEA Strategy).

Questions specific to Wales - Available only to schools in Wales.

Questions proposed by your LEA - If they have asked us to include any.

 

Please answer each question using one of the six possible responses that appear:

(1) Very Good (2) Good (3) Satisfactory (4) Poor (5) Very Poor or (X) Unable to comment

 

You can also enter comments both in the boxes after each section and in the additional comments box at the end of the core survey.  The survey can be printed in order to involve colleagues, for example administrative staff, governors, your SENCO and so on, in deciding your school’s response.  

 

3

Sign off and submit your survey as complete

 

When your school has completed the survey, the headteacher should click on Click here to sign off and submit your survey as complete from the survey menu.

Please note: This involves telling us how you would like your schools’ response to be used.  The default is to remain completely anonymous to your LEA, in which case we cannot pass on any comments you have made, and your LEA will only receive the aggregated analysis.  However, you can also choose either to release an anonymous verbatim copy of your comments only, or to release your named completed survey to your LEA.

 

Enquiries:

Further guidance on responding to the questions is available from the survey website under How to complete, as are the Terms of Use which give more detail on the how the Commission will use your response.

Your LEA should be your first point of contact for any general enquiries – their details will be available via the survey website by clicking on Further assistance.

You can also contact the Audit Commission by email at schoolsurvey-help@audit-commission.gov.uk.

http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/schoolsurvey