South Gloucestershire Council’s Health and Wellbeing Online Pupil Survey (OPS) 2026
Dear Parent/Carer/Guardian
RE: South Gloucestershire Council’s Health and Wellbeing Online Pupil Survey (OPS) 2026, Monday 12th of January to Friday 27th of March.
General information:
The OPS has been running in South Gloucestershire since 2015, engaging over 50,000 pupils. In 2023, its sixth edition involved 12,537 pupils (Years 4–13) from 95 schools. The survey ensures pupil voice informs services that support health, wellbeing, and education.
The survey covers:
- Educational experience
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Inequality
- Safety and harms
- Physical health
We support the Council’s Public Health team in delivering the 2026 OPS, which offers real benefits for pupils and our school.
Questions are age-appropriate and designed for our pupils. The survey is run by the Schools Health Education Unit (SHEU), experts with over 40 years’ experience working with thousands of schools.
After the survey, we receive an anonymous summary comparing our pupils’ responses with the South Gloucestershire average. Strict data rules ensure no pupil can be identified.
Included with this letter you’ll find SHEU’s pupil Privacy Notice – displayed prominently during survey completion.
Survey completion:
Council guidance recommends survey completion is during class time using school IT equipment. We will follow this as far as our IT capacity allows; in some cases, pupils may need to complete tasks outside school hours via our online learning platform. On-site, pupils will be supported, but teachers will not see or record individual answers. Participation is voluntary, and pupils may skip any question.
Data collection:
The survey does not collect names, addresses, contact details, or dates of birth. All pupils are asked about ethnicity and mental health. Separately, pupils in years 8 to 13 only are also asked a question about their sexual orientation. Under UK GDPR, this is only classed as personal or special category data if individuals are identifiable.
Pupil responses are never intended to identify individual children. We follow strict Council guidance to protect privacy. Our school only receives summary reports that compare our pupils as whole groups with the South Gloucestershire average.
The Council, and its commissioned provider SHEU, are the only organisations that can access individual pupil-level data, and all reporting is subject to strict confidentiality rules: for any response to appear in a report, at least six pupils in the same year group must have given that answer. The raw data files used by the Council and SHEU are password-protected, stored securely, and accessed only by a very small number of authorised staff.
While small numbers carry a limited reidentification risk, the Council processes OPS data under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, using Article 6(1)(e) (public interest task) and Article 9(2)(g) (substantial public interest) as the lawful basis.
A full Data Protection Impact Assessment has been completed. Further details are available in the Council’s Privacy Notice.
Benefits to our school and pupils of participation:
We collect this information confidentially to support pupil wellbeing and improve our school. It helps us plan learning support, curriculum, mental health provision, and targeted help.
The Council also uses anonymised data from all schools to improve services for children and young people.
Viewing survey questions:
Survey questions are available to view in the school office by appointment. Please contact us if you’d like to arrange this.
Right to request withdrawal:
As this survey is completed anonymously, the Council will not be able to identify individual responses once they have been submitted. This means that, although participation is voluntary, it will not be possible to withdraw your child’s data after they have completed the survey, because we will have no way of knowing which response is theirs.
If you or your child would prefer not to take part, please complete the following form using the link below before Wednesday 4th March.
We hope you’ll see this as a valuable way to improve pupils’ health, wellbeing, and school experience—now and in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Ballard
Principal
