FAQs for schools and teachers

What is the study about?
What is the purpose of the teacher study?
How was my school chosen for this study?
Who is carrying out the study?
Have children and parents / carers consented to teachers and schools taking part?
Who can complete the teacher survey?
How to take part in the study?
How will the information from schools and teachers be used?
Confidentiality and data protection
Will information be shared with the young person and their family?
What will happen to the information I give?
Do I have to take part?
Who do I contact if I still have questions, want to seek further information, or verify the research?

What is the study about?

Five to Twelve is a new national study of 8,200 young people in primary schools in England. It is an innovative study that will follow children, their families, and their teachers throughout the primary school years and possibly beyond. By following the same group of children over time, this study provides an important opportunity to gain unique insights into how experiences shape children’s lives, and how they progress while they're at primary school.

Studies like Five to Twelve are crucial for understanding what matters to young people and their families. They help inform policy and decisions about how the education system will work in the future, and how children and their families should be supported.

What is the purpose of the teacher study?

By contacting teachers, we will be able to gain better understanding of children’s educational environment. Specifically, the teacher survey will give us a picture of a child’s engagement in school, their behaviour, their attainment, and their overall wellbeing. The perspectives of teachers who interact with pupils on a regular basis are invaluable for this study, because they can provide us with unique insights of their experiences in the classroom environment. This information will be evaluated together with parents’ accounts of home and family life to create a deep understanding on how a range of factors shape children’s lives during their primary school years.

It is very important that the pupil’s teacher takes part in the Five to Twelve study. The school or the teacher selected cannot be replaced because we are only interested in understanding the school environment that is unique to the child participating in the study.

How was my school chosen for this study?

One or more pupils at your school who will be in Year 2 in the 2024-25 academic year have been invited to take part in the Five to Twelve study. A group of children were selected at random from the National Pupil Database to represent children in their year group across England. To make sure we get a more complete picture of their lives, we are asking children, their parents and carers, and their teachers to take part. 

Who is carrying out the study?

The study is funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and being carried out by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), the largest independent social research organisation in Britain. NatCen are working in collaboration with the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) and the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). The study has been reviewed by an independent group of people called a Research Ethics Committee, to protect your safety, rights, wellbeing and dignity. This study has been given ethical approval by the NatCen Research Ethics Committee A (Reference no. P17183). The continuation of the study in Year 2 has been given ethical approval by the NatCen Research Ethics Committee D (Reference no. P17959).

Have children and parents / carers consented to teachers and schools taking part?

Yes. In the first stage of the study, we carried out face-to-face interviews with the main parent / carer of the child. During these interviews, we informed the parent and the child about the purpose of the teacher survey and asked whether they were happy for us to contact their teacher. If they agreed, we then asked for their teacher’s name.

When we speak to parents / carers in Year 2, either online or over the phone, we will ask them again if they would like their Year 2 teacher to take part. 

Who can complete the teacher survey?

We would like the teacher of the child named in the invitation letter to fill out the survey. The invitation letter to take part in the study will be sent to the school, enclosing the surveys for participating children. It is very important that the child’s teacher completes the study, because this teacher will have the most information about the child.

The survey covers topics including the child’s experience of school, including their development, any additional provision they receive, the dynamic between the teacher and the child, family involvement in the child’s education and the outlook for the future.

If the teacher has left the school, please ask the child’s current class teacher to complete the questionnaire.

If you are receiving teacher questionnaires at the start of the 2024-25 academic year, please ensure the child’s previous Year 1 teacher completes the questionnaire wherever possible. 

How to take part in the study?

Your Headteacher will receive a letter inviting the school to take part in the study. With their letter will come a cover letter for the class teacher of the named pupils, as well as paper questionnaires about each of the participating children taught by the teacher.

Each questionnaire has a tear-off front page with details of the child who the questionnaire is about. For confidentiality purposes, this front page should be removed upon completion and destroyed securely. The paper questionnaires should be returned together with the feedback form in the prepaid envelopes.

The questionnaire should take around 10 minutes to complete per child.

How will the information from schools and teachers be used?

The information collected as part of the Five to Twelve study will help us create a holistic picture about how children’s school, home life and relationships shape their education and development. 

The information provided by teachers will be combined with the information collected from the child and their parent(s) or carer(s) and used to produce statistics. Data collected will be used solely for research purposes. Published research from this study will never identify any school or individual.

Names and contact details of teachers and school leaders are collected and stored solely for the purpose of sending the surveys and communications. We will never pass data on to third parties, or use the data for benchmarking or to evaluate individual school or teacher performance.

Confidentiality and data protection

Any information given, including personal details and questionnaire responses, will remain strictly confidential and handled in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation legislation. The information will only be shared with accredited researchers for statistics purposes only.

The Privacy Notice explains how we keep your information safe.

Will information be shared with the young person and their family?

No, we won’t share survey responses with children, their parents or anyone else at the school.

What will happen to the information I give?

Once we have collected all the answers from everyone who takes part, they will be looked at together as a group, anonymously. By this we mean that there will be no names attached to the answers and we will not know which person said what. We will then write up the findings into published reports.

Do I have to take part?

No, taking part in the study is voluntary. However, we really hope that you will take part, so that we get a holistic picture of every child taking part in Five to Twelve.

We hope we have explained just how important your/your teachers’ participation in the Five to Twelve study is, and the value of the information you can provide in producing reliable research for future research and decision-making. If you missed this, or need a refresher, see our section on ‘What is the purpose of the teacher survey?’

If your school or teacher(s) decide not to participate, this will not impact on the child’s ability to participate in the study.

Who do I contact if I still have questions, want to seek further information, or verify the research?

The National Centre for Social Research are delivering the study and can answer any questions you may have about the research and your participation. Click here to find their contact details.

To contact Department for Education, you can call the main helpline on 0370 000 2288 (Mon-Fri, 9.30am-5pm) or submit your question online. Please quote ‘Five to Twelve' study.