Calls are being made for an investigation into why some Glasgow schools didn’t participate in a controversial health and well-being questionnaire.
The survey, which wasn’t mandatory, had a response rate of 51% across the city — equivalent to 23,323 out of a potential 45,522 P5 to S6 pupils. Rates in secondary schools ranged from a high of 74% to a low of 1%, with five in single-figure percentages.
Many primary schools had completion rates in the high 80s, with one at 96%. However, the survey wasn’t completed by anyone at three primary schools.
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It had been criticised by some parents in advance of being sent out to schools, with concerns raised over what people believed to be explicit questions about sexual health.
Now, councillors have quizzed education officials over why the take-up was so low in some schools and asked for the issue to be explored.
Only 16 councils in Scotland chose to participate in the survey, which was rolled out during the 2021/22 school year.
Parents or carers had to give permission for young people to take part and children could choose to opt out if they wanted. There were different “age appropriate” questions for pupils, with those from P5 to S6 able to take the survey.
Topics included mental health, aspirations and career planning, general health and well-being, sex and lifestyle.
An official said: “In Glasgow this isn’t a new concept as NHS GGC have conducted similar surveys every three years, since 2006, in our school population.
“The results of the survey will be used to understand the health and well-being needs of our children.”
At an education committee meeting, Cllr Blair Anderson, Greens, said there had been “a lot of misinformation and scaremongering, particularly around the LGBTQ+ aspects of this survey”.
“Considering the climate in which it took place, there was lots of uncertainty. I'm glad we got such a good response rate, but there is still some variation, some of it is quite high, some of it is in single figures.
“Do you have a sense of why that is the case? Do you think there were particular worries in some parent councils or teaching communities or school communities?”
The council official said she had “no empirical evidence that would indicate either way”. “There may be some activity that went on in schools but I’m not aware of.
“Ultimately when it came down to it, parents were able to choose whether their child participated and then young people themselves.”
Cllr Graham Campbell, SNP, who chaired the committee, said there were “a couple of schools, around four primary schools, where the percentage return is 0”.
“We asked people to voluntarily submit the answers to these questions, but surely there is something going on there to have 0?”
He added some secondary schools had a response rate of 1% so there was “clearly some resistance”.
The official said the survey was “voluntary”. “I guess that’s the only answer I can give. In terms of the low response rate, I don’t know if some schools simply didn’t advertise it as widely as others.”
Cllr Bill Butler, Labour, said: “Given the gross disparity of completion rates, is education going to be investigating as to why that occurred? We don’t have any empirical evidence, we won’t have it until we ask the question.”
He questioned whether it had been offered in some of the schools with low response rates and asked for an investigation.
Glasgow’s director of education, Douglas Hutchison, said the department could look into it but there “could be a relatively simple explanation”.
“It could be something as simple as the headteacher was absent and it went to the headteacher’s mail box,” he added. “The survey wasn’t mandatory and different schools have different circumstances at different points in time.”
Cllr Butler responded: “It could be something as simple as it went into junk mail or something like that, but I very much doubt it. I would be very keen to find out why there is this huge disparity.
“What’s going on here? I would like specific questions asked of senior managers in these schools.”
Cllr Ricky Bell, SNP, said he had been “quite surprised by the response rate in since schools”.
But he added: “I’m not sure that us going into the school and demanding to know why the survey wasn’t filled in is maybe the best approach.
“I would like to suggest we engage with those schools and ask what were the barriers to that being filled in, was it the headteacher didn’t think it was an appropriate survey? Was it that it clashed with some other events that were going on in the school?
“I think an engagement exercise with those schools that had very low participation in order that we can understand what the barriers were.”
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