About the student survey

The NPSS Student Survey is provided to NSW public schools to capture insights from students about their experiences at school. The survey covers a range of topics, including student engagement, learning experiences and wellbeing at school, and is one way that students can have a voice in their education. Survey results provide schools with actionable data to drive school planning, reporting and excellence, helping to identify strengths and areas for improvement.

The survey also allows the department to observe trends and better understand what works best to promote positive outcomes for students, helping to shape effective policies and programs so that every student is known, valued and cared for in our schools, a key priority of Our Plan for NSW Public Education.

Schools can survey their students each year during the survey window in Term 2.

Who can take the student survey?

Participating schools can offer the survey to students in Years 3 to 12.

How does it work?

Students complete the survey online at school during school hours. It takes 10 to 15 minutes for students to complete the survey. The survey is confidential, meaning students cannot be identified from their responses. To further protect student confidentiality, the department will not report any results when there have been fewer than 5 responses to a question across the school or for particular student groups.

Parents and carers who do not want their child to participate in the NPSS Student Survey can complete an opt-out consent form to notify the school of this preference. Schools will provide parents with the opt-out consent form before the student survey is conducted in Term 2. Parents must return the form to the school.

Is the survey accessible?

The survey includes accessibility features to help students, including:

• Accessibility standards: the survey platform meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to support access to the survey for a wide range of students.
• Text-to-speech support: this feature reads the questions and answers aloud for students who need or prefer audio help.
• Plain English questions: the questions use simple language and have been checked by teachers and principals to ensure they are clear for students with different reading levels.
• Help text: some questions have additional help text. It gives extra details, explains ideas or provides examples to make things easier for students to understand.

To complement the NPSS Student Survey, the Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE) has launched My Say, My Way, a pioneering new suite of accessible student voice tools. These tools collect data on the educational experience, sense of belonging and wellbeing of students with disability and/or complex learning needs. My Say, My Way will be offered to interested schools for specific purposes and primary and secondary schools with support units as a pilot program in 2026. It will be available to all schools to offer to students unable to access the NPSS Student Survey from 2027.

Survey questions

All Department of Education staff can view the survey questions on the intranet.

For a copy of the student survey questions, email the NSW Public Schools Surveys team at schoolsurveys.admin@det.nsw.edu.au.