Edurio

Quality data that leads to action

We have been very pleased with the quality of service and the usefulness of the information obtained from all our stakeholder surveys, which we proactively use on an annual basis to inform our Trust’s continued growth and development. - Jayne Foster, Ethos Academy Trust

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Great financial value

In terms of the financial value of Edurio, I think it’s a no-brainer. If one survey’s data gives you enough information to change something, which enables even just one staff member to stay, Edurio’s service pays for itself. - Michael Cowland, The Diocese of Coventry Multi Academy Trust

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Improvement in staff wellbeing

Edurio’s insights have enabled us to use results and free-flow feedback to create action plans unique to each setting and across the trust, driving improvements in staff wellbeing. - Sarah Williams, Olympus Academy Trust

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Relying on experts to save resources

A key advantage of Edurio is the resource element – we don’t have to employ someone internally to research, develop, collate and review survey data. We can use experts to do this for us. - Sarah Williams, Olympus Academy Trust

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Streamlined data updates

The new self-serve feature in the Edurio platform makes updating data incredibly easy. A couple of our schools have already used it to prepare for Ofsted, and honestly, it couldn’t be simpler – quick, intuitive and stress-free. When you’ve got schools under pressure, having something that just works makes a real difference. - James Woodcock, Anglican Learning

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Building trust with headteachers – The Resilience Multi Academy Trust

The Resilience Multi Academy Trust (formerly known as Rodillian Multi Academy Trust) is a trust of four academies, an alternative provision independent school and a University Technical College (UTC) based in West and North Yorkshire.

You can access the full case study here.

Conquering an Unstructured Feedback Approach

When working on our stakeholder feedback strategy, we came to the conclusion that the schools in our trust had done a lot of ad hoc surveys, and there was a lot of feedback being collected on an ad hoc basis, which created a bit of an unorganised approach to surveying. So, we were in need of a more structured approach that included a centralised tool for surveying across the schools in our trust.

The Need for Benchmarking

We knew we wanted to have a fresh approach to stakeholder feedback surveys, so the ability to create a benchmark for us as a trust was critical to be able to see the state of things in our trust at the moment.

We’d come across Edurio by reputation in the sector, through the CST and others, but the key selling point was the benchmark feature that allows us to see how schools within our trust are doing and the additional national benchmarks for further analysis and insights into sector trends.

Overcoming Headteacher Reluctance

It’s our first time working with Edurio, and we’re running staggered surveys across all stakeholder groups to get a baseline. So we started with a parent survey, are currently active with a pupil survey and plan to run a staff survey a bit later this year. Running this process for the first time, the biggest problem was getting through to the school principals that this is not something to fear. We held a lot of discussions about it to get them on board, but we will have to wait and see how the analysis goes and what actions we end up taking based on what we see in the results.

Maintaining Independence, Common Vision and Collaboration

We want the schools in our trust to remain independent and to be able to make decisions that best suit their community and culture, but we have some non-negotiables as a trust and will drive that common vision. I think we’ll need to get everyone in the same room to talk about the results and to see where we go next. By getting all of the principals, directors and other key decision makers together, we’ll be able to see what needs to be done in the short term and plan for the long term. Hopefully, this will also allow for some sharing of best practices as to how schools communicate with parents, and how that community building happens.

Read the full case study here.

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Using surveys to uncover staff thoughts - The Diocese of Coventry Multi Academy Trust

Before working with Edurio, what challenges were you and your team at CovMAT facing?

When I joined the trust in 2019, the trust didn’t really have a written down strategy. So firstly, we decided to speak to all the stakeholders, headteachers, chairs of governors and others. We wanted to hear more from our staff and know where we needed to improve.

We took time to develop our strategy plan and one of the goals within it was to become an employer of choice (which is probably something you see in most organisations), but we realised we didn’t know what employees actually thought about us. So, we decided we needed to ask them.

Read the full case study here.

What was it about Edurio that made you think ‘this is for us’?

At first, I tried asking in person; however I soon realised I couldn’t get around 850 staff members, and was aware that this method would not be anonymous or give equal voice to all staff. So, we decided we needed to conduct a staff survey. One of the board members then recommended Edurio; after a consultation with Edurio, we chose to go ahead with their staff survey.

How did you find the process of working with Edurio?

Everyone at Edurio has been helpful and friendly. Everyone does what they say they would do. They’ve been a pleasure to work with!

The opportunity to speak to the Edurio team about the results we received at the end of our survey was beneficial rather than just handing the results to us and saying, here you go, off you go with it.

With the reports and executive summary that you get from an Edurio survey, it’s easy for us to pick up the headlines. It was really useful for the board reports, as you can easily scan through what’s most positive (in green) and least positive (in red) to see your trust’s areas of strength or most concern.

While it’s great to see the obvious stuff, it’s the data behind the data I think that you really need to interrogate. Looking into the different areas of the survey and how results differ for each year, school, and in comparison to the national data helps you know which schools are struggling and which ones are leading the way.

What has been the impact on CovMAT of using Edurio?

Edurio has given us the data to think about our strategic planning more meaningfully. The survey answered many questions we already knew we wanted to ask staff, and questions we did not even know we had. There will always be areas where staff are satisfied and dissatisfied, but before asking staff, you don’t know whether your assumptions on what those might be are correct. For example, when asked whether or not staff felt being in the trust was worthwhile, we found it interesting to see that while we scored in line with the national benchmark for that topic, our staff did not rate the benefits of being in the trust as highly as they’d rated other things.

After collecting our survey responses, we spent time looking through the data, communicated & developed an action plan that was approved by our board. We were able to look at areas where we scored more poorly and develop a staff wellbeing plan.

This plan had three main target areas, which came to light when looking through all staff wellbeing survey results:

1. Communication: Communicating more often and effectively with our colleagues;

2. Benefits: Raising awareness about the benefits of being part of the trust;

3. Wellbeing: Focusing on balancing staff workload and wellbeing.

Then we were very honest, and during a staff conference attended by all 850 staff members, we talked through the results, and outlined the areas we’d highlighted for us to focus on. Following this, individual schools and headteachers were then able to develop individualised action plans using their unique data.

Our trustees have been interested to see all the data we have collected and find it useful being able to compare it between schools and the national benchmark. Most importantly, they have been pleased to see all things the survey has brought to light that we didn’t know before.

We can now be more strategic when it comes to people planning, being led by evidence rather than by our assumptions about what our staff think, feel and need. Trustees are also happy to see some meaningful targets around the subject, as we have a baseline score from the first year, which should be better after a year of concerted effort on that topic.

Why would you recommend Edurio?

I would recommend and have already recommended Edurio.

If I were to ever move to a different trust (which I am not planning) one of the first things would be to engage with Edurio.

Edurio has given our trust a whole richness of data and enabled us to develop our staff wellbeing action plan that we couldn’t have done with any information we had internally beforehand.

In terms of the financial value of Edurio, I think it’s a no-brainer. If one survey’s data gives you enough information to change something, which enables even just one staff member to stay, Edurio’s service pays for itself.

I would recommend that all trusts do it, especially when you think of the costs of replacing one staff member!

Read the full case study here.

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Using survey data to identify and lead school improvement - EEEA

How did you decide to work with Edurio?

We had been using another company to do the surveys for about three years before we chose to work with Edurio. Returning to the same survey provider over multiple years was useful as we could see year-on-year comparisons for the trust, but we didn’t get any comparisons beyond our own organisation.

Without that external comparison, we could look at the results and feel that we were doing well or badly in a particular area, but without an external comparison, it was hard to know whether the results we were seeing were actually how they appeared to be.

So when Edurio was recommended to us, and we learned about their nationally benchmarked set of questions, we felt this would be really valuable to us. That was the main reason we made the switch from our previous provider to Edurio.

The other challenge with what we had been using previously was that those surveys had a lot more questions, so the important areas got lost amongst all the other questions. So even though we’d been using that survey for about three years, we felt it was time to review other options in the sector, and that’s where we found Edurio.

Lastly, the fact that it was genuinely anonymous and that Edurio is an independent company was a key factor in our decision. With the previous survey, you were given a code where you would log in, but we didn’t know how many times people logged in. With Edurio, we were confident we could reach all our members of staff and provide them an anonymous opportunity for feedback.

How did you find the process of working with Edurio?

This is our third year working with Edurio on a staff survey, and the process has been straightforward each time. In our first year we learned how the system works, made sure that the emails that we shared with Edurio were accurate and that the Edurio surveys wouldn’t land in people’s junk boxes. We also found out after we launched that one of our schools had done a staff survey a month before we did the overall trust survey, and so their return rate was really low. So we learnt from that.

The honest guidance from the Edurio team was really useful, around what would or would not work, how many questions we should include, and timing for the surveys early on. Edurio’s Customer Success Manager, Mikelis, worked with us throughout the survey and the support was key because he helped us work through whether we wanted to include bespoke questions, and guided us on best practice based on the research sitting behind the Edurio surveys. They’re not just questions picked out of the air, they’re questions that have been informed from work they’ve done over the years. Most of our bespoke questions we’ve actually taken out now because we see more value from Edurio’s set questions.

Mikelis has also been really helpful in that he will touch base frequently throughout the time we’ve been working together. Even when we haven’t had a survey coming up, he’ll reach out and see how we’re getting on with the results and see if there’s anything he can do to help, there’s been no issue that wasn’t able to be resolved. The Edurio team is always happy to help, joining meetings with our trustees and so on to come and present the data in a way that the team have always found really valuable.

And the platform itself is really useful. With Edurio you also have access to all your questions in a way you can drill down deeper and combine different sets of data. It’s really clear. I think the colours help you to see where you are strong and where you might need some more attention. It’s really easy to play around with for myself, my school heads and my trustees.

From a data perspective, one of the things that we were really keen on this year was to increase the participation in the survey. So we talked about making sure there’s no surveys running in the school at the same time, giving the schools quite a bit of warning that it was coming and I set a target for the response rate of 70% to introduce a bit of competition. We got a really good response rate this year as a result. And with Edurio’s system, it can tell whether a staff member has filled out the survey and send reminders to those who haven’t (without bothering those who have), which really helps to ensure we’re reaching everyone.

What has been the impact on EEEA of using Edurio?

We run the survey in the Spring term, so once we’ve got the results we can analyse what the reports say, and then communicate to the staff what we’re going to do and what we’re going to change going into the new year. We’ll look at what the priority areas should be: what were the strengths and what are the next areas we want to focus on and this forms the basis of our action plan.

As an example, we had feedback a year ago around communication from the Trust and the appraisal process. As a result of both of those, we changed the way that we communicate with staff and changed our appraisal process, and found that this year, the feedback was much more positive.

One of things that’s been really interesting for us is that, depending on where we assess the schools on their journey of development, we can see certain indicators within the surveys. We had a school that’s undergone a lot of change over the past three years, and is now in a good, stable position. Watching their survey results over the past three years we could see that transition from initial indicators of a lot of work going on, to now seeing really positive results.

And we’re now able to use that information for another school that’s going through a similar journey. So we’ve been able to look at it a bit more strategically, and also use it with governors and trustees to outline the process that we know we go through. Comparing that school’s current situation to the other school’s situation from a few years ago we see very similar data, so we can start to see what tools we deployed in the original school that might help us guide this school through their journey.

Our staff have been really receptive to the surveys too, they’re really open because it’s part of our culture. We don’t tell people what to do, what we do is influence thinking and question things. And I involve the heads in the discussions before we start the planning process so they know that it’s a key part of role as leaders, to capture stakeholder understanding and wellbeing.

The process is very much a cyclical one. People will respond to surveys if they feel they’re going to get something out of it. We say to them “this is what you told us and as a result, these are the changes we plan to make, and you can contact me directly if you want to have a conversation about thoughts and ideas”. So for me, it’s just a key part of how we work now.

And last but not least, the surveys come in handy when we have an inspection, as we’re able to show the areas of success and show that whilst we are not without challenges, we are aware of them and able to take proactive and evidence-driven steps towards improving them.

Why would you recommend Edurio?

Whenever I do any school improvement work with other trusts, I’m recommending Edurio to everybody as a way of capturing anonymous feedback via a group of independent experts. I’ve had feedback in some schools where they’ve been gathering anecdotes here and there but don’t have the complete picture by any stretch.

As this company is completely independent and you’re able to reach all your stakeholders, you’ll be able to use it as a really good piece of evidence to either support what you’re saying or look at development points.

And it’s cost-effective. I think too many schools choose to do surveys on the cheap, using Survey Monkey, Google surveys, but the biggest challenge they have if they’re going through difficult times is it can be so subjective, and it’s hard to ensure it’s anonymous. And you know, where’s the theory? What’s the research sitting behind your survey?

Finally, because the platform is really easy to use and easy to understand. You can really dive deeply into it, to prioritise what matters most, communicate that back to your teams, and then see how things change next year based on the efforts you put in this year.

Click here to read the full case study.

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United Learning - Transforming School Improvement

Edurio has been supporting United Learning in stakeholder feedback collection since 2016. See the 4 videos in which they explain why and how they have focused on stakeholder feedback and how Edurio has helped them along the way.

Click here to read the full case study.

How have survey results been valuable to United Learning?

United Learning started surveying their staff in an effort to understand better how they were feeling and what their unique experience was like working both for their school and for the trust — how well-managed they were, how satisfied they were with professional development opportunities, if they understood what the organisation was trying to achieve, etc.

This insight from the people on the front lines — those teaching the pupils every day, seeing how policies and programmes actually work in practice — is critical for leadership to understand to make decisions and changes that lead to continuous improvement.

What is the impact of using Edurio across the whole trust?

With this new level of fine-grained detail and analysis of pupil feedback, both school and trust leadership at United Learning can now compare results and identify opportunities for collaboration between schools while also looking within a school to see what is going on with specific classes, subjects or small groups of pupils. They have a level of information and understanding that they’ve never had before, allowing them to react and solve problems much more quickly and effectively.

“What’s been really interesting is that sometimes, it’s given us an insight into an issue we thought we understood very well.”

When the United Learning team visits a school, they get one perspective on an issue. They have a second layer of feedback from the staff, but once they added a new perspective from the pupils, they realised they hadn’t seen the whole picture.

Take behaviour, for example — the last thing anyone expected was for staff to have a more positive view of behaviour than the students themselves. Still, in some cases, that is exactly what happened. The pupils sparked changes in behaviour and discipline policies because they knew what negatively affected their learning.

Read the full case study and watch the videos here.

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