About the survey

The AtoSS is a voluntary student survey offered by the Department of Education every year to help schools and the department understand students’ experiences of school. We will ask your child about their thoughts and feelings about their school, their learning, relationships with other students, resilience, bullying, health and wellbeing, physical activity, and life in general.

ORIMA Research Pty Ltd has been contracted by the department to manage the collection of the online survey and will provide support to schools through a telephone hotline and email.

This year, the survey will be conducted at your school from 18^th May to 12^th June.

What are the benefits?

Young people enjoy having a say! This survey has been running for nearly 20 years and helps schools plan programs and activities to improve your child’s engagement with school, their wellbeing and their learning. The survey data also helps the Department of Education understand how to improve student learning.

What are the risks?

We don’t expect many risks of participation, but some students may find some questions personal or sensitive. If you agree for your child to take part, they can still skip questions or withdraw at any time whilst completing the survey if it makes them upset or uncomfortable. A teacher will be present during the survey to support students.

The questions come from validated survey instruments used in Australia and around the world. They focus on your child’s strengths and are designed for each year level group.

What will my child be asked to do?

Your child will be invited to complete the survey online during class time using a purpose built secure online survey tool. We are not “testing” your child. Please note:

• Students can choose if they want to take part, skip questions if they don’t want to answer, and can stop doing the survey at any time.
• There are different versions of the survey to let all students take part.
• The survey will take around 20-40 minutes to complete.

How is my child’s privacy protected?

A teacher will give your child a unique login to complete the survey. This unique student login is an assigned identifier that will be used by the department to link data for analysis and research only. Some student demographic data such as year level, gender, age, and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status are provided to ORIMA research, and linked with the unique student login ID to administer the survey. This information helps to support analysis and research, to paint a clearer picture of how Victorian school students are faring.

ORIMA Research will only use student personal information for research purposes to facilitate the administration and data collection of the Attitudes to School Survey. To keep your child’s survey answers private, ORIMA Research won’t include any personally identifiable data in the survey answers file that is provided to the department.

All data is stored on servers located in Australia, and only staff who are working on the project can access it.

All information collected about your child will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Data and Protection Act 2014 (Vic), the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) and the Public Records Act 1973 (Vic), as well as the Department’s Schools’ Privacy Policy. Please note that consistent with the above legislation and our policy, there are instances where we may be required by law to share information provided by your child. For example, where there is a threat to your child’s health and safety.

How will results be reported?

The department will only use aggregated state-wide survey data to report on initiatives and this data may also be used in public discussions of issues about student engagement and wellbeing. An example of how survey data has been previously used includes reporting levels of student engagement in the Performance Summary in the Annual Report to the School Community. The department will not share any identifiable student data with any other party.

Your child’s school will only get reports about groups of students. Information about individual students and the student answers data file will not be shared with schools. If there are low numbers of student answers to a question, the report will not show results for this question to protect the privacy of those students.

Your school may share the survey report back to you.

For more information about this survey, including the questions your child will be asked to answer, please visit the department’s survey information page.

If you would like more information or have any concerns about the survey, please speak to your child’s teacher, or contact the department at school.surveys@education.vic.gov.au.